High Noon
by RiaMaria
Summary: Set 5 Years after Breaking Dawn, the Cullens leave Forks to start a new life. However one of them lapses, and puts the entire family at risk. NOT a Jake & Nessie story. All canon. This story gets quite dark in places, and is rated T for a reason
1. Meeting

Edward held my hand as we walked into the dining room and took our places around the table. Carlisle sat at the head, with Edward on his right and Esme on his left. I sat between Edward and Alice, Jasper, Rosalie and Emmett were the last to sit down, completing my family, all bar one. Ness (who was now old enough to know her own mind and insisted we all called her Ness these days) was at home asleep, it seemed this meeting had been held off until the early hours of the morning to ensure this would be the case.

Everyone was looking at Carlisle expectantly, I had a strange feeling I was missing something but turned to see why we had been called together so formally. "It is time." Carlisle paused and looked at each of us briefly.

I was surprised when Edward squeezed my hand gently to get my attention. As I turned I couldn't help but smile at my own personal miracle. Time had done nothing to subdue the exhilaration I felt being with him, his eyes drew me as strongly today as they did seven years ago when we first met. I saw they were black with thirst and realised how long it had been since we hunted. I made a mental note that we should go as soon as this was over. "Love, this is probably going to be harder on you than the rest of us, but it's time to leave Forks."

Suddenly the quiet conversations Carlisle and Edward had been having in his office made sense. It was time to leave my home. Can vampires feel sick? Suddenly I felt quite ill.

"I'm claiming to be 39 at the hospital now, and it's really getting unfeasible." Carlisle looked at Edward. "I think some of the staff are beginning to feel a bit confused."

"They are starting to talk." agreed Edward, his ability to read minds had allowed him to see that in fact many of the staff working with Carlisle were actively questioning how the hell a 39 year old still looked like he could be fresh out of college. "But it's not just you, I'm claiming 24 now, and although I love my practice I can't get away from the fact that I still look 17." Edward was trying to make some use of his many degrees and currently practicing as a psychiatrist in Port Angeles. The mind reading helped a fair bit there as well.

I looked from my husband to my surrogate father and couldn't help but see their point. Edward had tasked Alice with helping him to look older when he had decided to open his practice three years ago, but sometimes I couldn't help but feel that the conservative suits and professional hairstyle he was currently sporting only highlighted his glorious youthful features and his lithe 17 year old body. His bronze hair, though tamed with copious styling product these days, still had a tendency to poke out in odd directions in an endearing and boyish way. Carlisle had taken to flattening his hair at the front to give himself a slightly receding hairline two years ago, but his face was far too fresh for this to make much difference.

"So, we propose we start in a new place in September, This will make sense to any humans we talk to about why we have moved to our new location, as all of you will be able to start school at the beginning of a new school year." Carlisle looked to Edward who continued.

"Ness is at the stage now that she could do the final 3 years of High school and fit in very well, she might look a little young to begin with, but by the time she graduates she will look like any other 18 year old. It's not like she'll actually learn anything, but so far she has grown up in a very protected environment, and she needs to be educated in living alongside humans, blending in." Edward glanced at me and caught the look in my eye. "As well as can be expected anyway." He smiled at me as he knew I was thinking we never blended in.

"Oh no, no I'm not going to High school again." Everyone turned to look at Rosalie, surprised.

"Me neither, uh huh, no way. I draw the line." Emmett grinned, but was clearly deadly serious. "I've done my time, not everybody graduates High School anyway, why do we have to keep doing it? Come on man, back me up!" Emmett looked at Edward who grinned back.

"In a way, that may actually help Emmett." Carlisle jumped in and a glance passed between him and Edward. "When we came to Forks the size of our family then attracted attention. For Esme and I to be the parents of seven teenage children, 6 of them clearly couples, will attract even more attention, which is not what we want."

"Eight children" Esme said quietly. "Jacob?"

Jacob would likely want to be wherever Ness was, so eight children, perhaps.

"So, are we being banished then?" Rosalie pulling us back to the subject in hand with a sardonic smile.

"We felt that maybe it was time for us to live, as far as the rest of the world is concerned, as two separate families." Edward paused and looked a little pained before he continued. "Clearly Bella and I cannot live with Ness as her parents while we are in High School, and as the technically youngest person here, I will need to go to High School again to allow us to stay in our new home for any length of time."

I squeezed Edward's hand under the table, I knew how hard this must be for him. "How do you propose we split ourselves up?" I spoke quietly as I could sense what was coming.

"I will live with Rosalie and Emmett, as Emmett's brother. Rosalie will claim to be Carlisle's sister and we will try and find houses as close together as possible. You, Ness and Alice will be sisters adopted by Carlisle and Esme when you were about 8 years old, Jasper will also be Carlisle and Esme's foster son. Wouldn't like the town to have no gossip at all would we?" Edward gave me my favourite crooked smile and I felt better. This was only the story to the outside world after all, and it might be fun to go back to High School again, with him. "Rosalie already has an idea of what she and Emmett could do with themselves."

"Does she now?" We all rolled our eyes at Emmett in sync and he leered at Rosalie, then laughed heartily.

"We could start a business; live a real life as grown-ups rather than perpetually going to school to go nowhere afterwards." Rosalie was gazing off into the distance, an optimistic look in her eye I'd never seen before. Being able to be so involved with Ness and her upbringing had filled a gap in Rosalie; she was happier and more content than any of our family had ever known her. We were now friends, and I was glad.

"Jacob?" Esme reminded us again.

"I'm not sure how big a problem that's going to be." I stopped and looked at Edward. We hadn't discussed this yet, but we both knew how Ness had been feeling for the last few months. I'm sure Edward knew in great detail as Ness had been quite preoccupied at times, and he wasn't able to shut her out as effectively as he would've liked.

I didn't want to betray my daughter's trust, and Edward clearly did not want to say something Ness had not freely given up to him. I saw Rosalie fiddling with her hands and realised she knew what I was talking about as well, I nodded to her and she picked up from where I left off. "Ness is wondering how she feels about Jacob. She knows she cares about him, but, you know, she lives with Edward and Bella." I wondered what on earth that had to do with anything. Rosalie grinned at me and carried on. "Bella, Ness is about 14 or 15 emotionally at the moment, and feels like she lives with Romeo and Juliet. When she's not thinking 'yuk parents get a room', she's kind of jealous."

This isn't quite what she'd said to me, but I could see Edward was not at all surprised by what Rosalie was saying.

"She has always had Jacob there, he obviously thinks the world of her, but there's no excitement there for her, he's made her feel a bit too secure for his own good. I think she's wondering what else is out there. She views Jake as too comfortable. Also I think now she's old enough to understand the whole imprinting thing she doesn't see why she should just go along with it." Rosalie looked at me and smiled. I smiled back, I was glad my daughter had someone she could talk to when it was hard to talk to her Mom.

"So maybe somewhere far enough away, but not so far as Jacob _has _to move with us, and so we can come and see Charlie as well." I looked at Edward who nodded.

"That might be a hard conversation for Jacob though, Bella." Edward looked at me meaningfully.

"I know, but his pack is here and he must realise we have to move on sometime." I looked around the table aware that there were others who may have points to make.

"Jasper and I already knew this was coming Bella." Alice smiled at me. "I've been looking forward to it for a while, our new home looks lovely and we get to live together again!" Smug psychics.

"So where are we headed Alice?" Carlisle smiled as she rolled his eyes at him.

"I can't tell you, you have to tell us, but Edward is pretty sure I think. Anyhow, if we're done for now, Jasper and I want to hunt tonight, coming Bella?"

"Edward?" I was suddenly keen to get out of the meeting, if I only had a short time left in Forks I wanted to enjoy it.

"Yes love, let's hunt."


	2. Renesmee

Disclaimer ; I don't own Twilight!

As we walked out of the house I caught Edward's hand and held him back from the others. After we leapt over the river we walked at nearly human speed, quietly I began. "Is Rosalie right, is that everything?"

"It's most of it yes. Ness is going through puberty very quickly, so is being very affected by her hormones at the moment." Edward stopped and turned to look at me. "She is worried that her whole life is planned out for her already, and although she cares for Jacob it's very hard to feel electricity around someone who has changed your diapers."

"I can understand that, but does she really feel jealous, of us?" I leaned into him, inhaling his beautiful scent and thinking that I could understand someone being jealous of me right now.

"She does, but it's funny seeing the way we are together through her mind." He smiled at me as he wrapped his arms around me and pulled me close. "She thinks of it as gravity, she looks at us as if I am the sun and you are the earth rotating around me."

I remembered a conversation in my dim human memories with my mother, who also used the word gravity to describe mine and Edward's relationship. It made sense to me, Edward, the centre of my universe.

"She's wrong you know." Edward murmured in my ear, before he grazed his lips along my throat. "If you are the earth I am merely the moon." I pulled his face to me and looked into his eyes for a moment, before he leant down and kissed me gently on the mouth. My thirst faded into the background for now as my need for him outweighed it, and we sunk gently to the forest floor in a passionate embrace.

By the time we had hunted the sky was turning pink and it was time to get home before Ness woke up. I cooked her some eggs for breakfast when I heard her stirring, and Edward stole away to talk to Carlisle further about our plans. This morning Edward had revealed that our time was short in Forks. He and Carlisle felt that the interest in him was such in the hospital that he needed to leave as soon as possible. So rather than the 5 months I thought we had left until a September move, we were in fact moving up to Denali about 6 weeks from now. We had a permanent home there near Tanya's family that we could use while we set up our fresh start elsewhere. It also helped to cut ties with our previous home in case anyone got nosey and tried to trace us.

"Morning Mom" Ness wandered into the kitchen still dressed for bed. "Where's Dad?"

"Well, there's two ways to answer that, the first is that he's with Carlisle, the second and frankly more truthful is that he's giving us some space for a chat." I smiled as I sat opposite her and her breakfast.

"Hmmm?" Teenagers, surely they don't need to lose the power of speech do they?

"It's time to move Ness. Part of keeping the secret is moving on before people get suspicious, we've been here a long time." I waited for her to react, but she simply looked at me. "Are you ok, I guess you must be upset?"

"Well, no." Ness looked down and continued to eat, but now at a slightly reduced pace. "Where are we going?"

"I don't know yet, your father and Carlisle are still researching, but we are planning on leaving Forks for Denali by the end of May." At this Ness looked up at me, but still continued to eat.

"What about Charlie?" She tucked into another forkful of eggs, at least she wasn't off her food.

"We're not moving to Mars, we'll drive over and see him sometimes, he has Sue now so he won't be alone." I was waiting for tears but still nothing.

"Jacob?"

"Doesn't know yet." I waited for her to look up at me before I continued. "He could come with us, or we could arrange for that not to happen, it's really up to you."

"Would it...." She put her fork down at last, I really needed to see how she was reacting to this news in her eyes, without Edward I felt blind. In that moment I realised I relied on him too much these days. "Would it be bad if I said I was glad?"

"Only if it wasn't true" After hearing what she had been feeling recently, and knowing I had missed so much all I wanted was the truth today.

"I don't want Jacob to come. I need some space away from him." Her words came out in a rush, I could hear relief in them. "I can sense his feelings towards me changing as I'm getting older, and I'm not ready for that. I don't like it."

"We don't have to say anything to him yet, but we can't leave it too long, that would be cruel." Jake had suffered enough at our hands, I hoped it wasn't my daughter's turn to break his heart this time.

"I'll think about it Mom, I don't want to just..... I don't know the words.... dump him? No, that's not right. I think he needs to understand that I need some space, if he thinks you're just taking me away he'll follow us." She pulled a face, she looked so like Edward now it was untrue, Edward with my eyes.

"I'll leave it with you, tell me if you need any help. I know I'm your Mom, but you know you can talk to me right?" How did I get to be the Mom of a teenager already, how is that fair?

"Ok, I'm going for a shower." And with that she was gone. I couldn't believe she was taking this so well, she must really be keen to get away from Jacob, but what was she looking for?

A few days later Edward and I had overheard everything between Ness and Jake. They had gone for a walk in the forest to talk, but obviously Ness wanted us to hear so she stayed close. We sat together in the garden of our cottage in each other's arms while Ness broke Jake's heart.

"We're moving Jake, it's time, people will start to notice we're not aging." Ness spoke slowly, but I could hear resolve in her voice.

"I'm not aging, doesn't worry me." Jake was smiling, not hearing from her tone where this was leading.

"No, but in La Push that's ok, most of the tribe know what's going on now. It's not for us, we have to go."

"So where are we going?" Jacob had misread the "we" in Ness's sentence to include himself, I tensed myself for her next reply.

"We are headed to Denali for now, and on from there in time for school in September." She took a breath. "You are staying here."

There was a moment of silence before Jacob replied, "I can come, the pack doesn't need me, I need to be with you Ness, I'll follow you." I tensed and Edward rubbed my shoulders gently, even now I couldn't bear to think of Jake being hurt by us yet again.

"No Jake. You can't." Another deep breath, "I don't want you to."

More silence, I heard a hitched breath from Jake, but he did not reply.

"I need some time without you Jake, I can't just proceed with my life as if it were planned for me the day I was born." Her words came out in a rush, and only got faster as she tried to explain how she felt. "You have always been there for me, and I'm glad of it and don't know quite how I'll get by without you, but that's kind of why I need to. I need some space Jake, and this seems a good time for it. You know I love you right?"

"I know." Jake sounded quiet, not angry, simply still, I imagined how he would look, calm, like Sam. "When are you leaving?"

"Not yet, a few weeks. We have some time." Ness sounded sad too.

At that they got up and walked further into the forest, out of our hearing I guessed.

"That went well" Edward sounded relieved, I don't know what he'd expected, for Jake to pick her up and run off with her?

"I suppose, is he ok?" Edward could hear his thoughts as well so would know what I could only guess.

"Not really, but determined to hide it well. He understood exactly what Ness was saying almost immediately, he has been thinking about this for a while so he's not surprised."

"Hmmph!" I poked Edward in the stomach and he grinned at me, "Why couldn't you have told me that before?"

"You never asked, Love. Anyway, I have other things to think about if we have the house to ourselves for a while." He started to trail kisses down my neck and onto my collarbones. He undid my top button and started to work his way across my shoulders. "Rats. Alice!" There was a loud knock on the door.

"Go away!" We shouted together and Alice's laughter tinkled through to us.

"Sorry folks, Carlisle is rounding us all up, he knows where we're going." Alice called through the door and was gone.

"Later!" I said to Edward as I pulled him to his feet. He kissed me passionately for a moment, then let his arms fall away.

"Later." He took my hand and we ran back to the mansion to join the rest of our family.


	3. Denali

Disclaimer ; I don't own Twilight!

I sat down in the snow and watched Edward and Emmett wrestle. With the snow, every time one of them bounced away and landed a huge cloud of wet soared into the air, and I had already moved several times to avoid getting buried under an avalanche. I didn't mind though, Edward was happy. In Denali we could be ourselves more than would be the case in a few short days time when we started our new lives in Calgary, Alberta. Edward had decided a move to Canada would allow us to retain the freedom we had grown so used to in Forks, due to the still low number of sunny days. Carlisle had found a suitable job in the General Hospital, and Esme had found a beautiful old house outside of the city buried deep in the park to renovate. We had also bought a "Town" house in a suburban area on the same side of the city, which was to be home to Rosalie, Emmett and Edward. The thought of no longer living with him depressed me a little, even if it was just pretend. However thinking of him creeping into my bedroom window again was a little exciting.

Being close to the Canadian Rockies would mean plenty of hunting possibilities, and a larger population hopefully meant we would not stand out so much as in Forks.

I knew most of my family were not looking forward to the move. Creating the lie was hard work in the beginning, trying to blend in and not attract attention was essential for us to be able to stay anywhere for any period of time. I couldn't wait though. Although the whole Denali clan were very welcoming to us all, I still harboured some reservations about Tanya's attention toward Edward. When she spoke to him she leaned in a little too close, and her friendly touches were often a little too lingering. Occasionally I regretted that I was no longer a newborn, so no longer had any excuse if I were to drag her away from him and hurl her out of the window, as occasionally crossed my mind. Edward was not helping matters, although he assured me that there was nothing to worry about, he did enjoy my jealousy rather too much.

I thought of the day we'd left Forks, Charlie had tried his best not to let on how sad he was to see us go, but his red rimmed eyes gave the game away as he waved us off. I remembered the little "surprise" leaving party he'd thrown us on our last morning in Forks (is anything ever a surprise with Alice around?).

"Now you didn't think we were going to let you leave without some kind of send off did you?" Charlie was doing his best to be cheerful, "Jacob insisted we should do it this morning, before you actually went rather than last night."

"I think that's probably because he wanted Nessie to himself last night Dad."

"Ness" I heard her correcting me from the kitchen where she was helping Jake with drinks.

"Ness." I corrected myself under my breath. Why hadn't I just called her Rachel or Clare?

"Maybe" He wasn't going to be put off though, "I want you to come back and visit often, the way that girl grows I'll miss so much." I felt bad at how sad he looked, but the Sue came and put her arm around his waist I remembered he wasn't alone anymore.

I was suddenly pulled back to the current by a crashing wave of snow tumbling over my head. I didn't move, I wasn't uncomfortable and decided that as Edward and Emmett had gotten me into this mess the least they could do was dig me out.

"A little help?" I muttered into the snow. I heard a familiar chuckle as the snow was whipped away from me, and Edward was suddenly on his hands and knees leaning over my face.

"Sorry, Love. You know, it's completely illogical the panic that just hit me when I realised I couldn't see you anymore." Edward smiled his gorgeous crooked smile as he pulled me up out of the snow.

"The more logical panic you should be feeling my love, is for the sheer hell and fury Alice is going to rain down on you for the fact you have completely ruined my Chanel coat." I grinned, then laughed aloud as a mixture of emotions crossed Edward's face, until he stopped at impish.

"Well, if I've totally ruined your clothes then maybe I should help you out of them."

"Yuk parents, offspring nearby." I peered round Edward to see Ness walking towards us with Rosalie, clearly looking for Emmmett.

"Hey Rose, what happened?" Emmett called from under another bank of snow. I looked at Edward questioningly as Emmett appeared, shaking the white from clothes.

"Rosalie is trying to buy a business just outside of Calgary." Edward filled me in. "She wants to go into the motor trade."

"I have purchased said business in fact. We are now the proprietors of 'Wendle Auto Service and Repairs', in a little suburb just outside of the city." Rosalie looked delighted by her new acquisition; I knew she was excited at the thought of living as an adult this time around. She and Emmett planned to run a garage instead of attending the nearby Wendle High School with the rest of us.

"Ex-cell-lent!" Emmet emphasised each syllable as he picked up Rosalie and swished her around in his arms.

"Anyone would think we'd won the lottery, not just committed to working every day for money we don't even need!" Rosalie laughed, still in Emmett's arms

"How are you going to know how much to charge people, for what you do?" Ness was curious, having never spent any time as a human herself the whole world was a little alien to her, a fact which I hoped would be remedied by three years of High School.

"We have the price list from the last owners, but really we'll just charge enough so as we make a sensible profit." Rosalie was taking the entire exercise very seriously, and would only want to run the business if it could actually earn its keep.

"When are you leaving?" Edward clearly knew the answer to his question, but asked Rosalie aloud for mine and Ness's sake.

"Well, actually Edward, we're leaving tomorrow. I need to go and sign some paperwork, and Carlisle thinks it may be better if we arrive a little ahead of his family, not that anyone will really notice, but... y'know." She shrugged as she failed to articulate what we already knew. Probably no one would notice, but better safe than sorry.

Edward looked at me, and I realised that Rosalie's we would include him as well.

"No, don't go." I wrapped my arms tightly around him, as if I could make him stay simply by holding onto him. "Stay here with me and our big soft bed."

"Offspring mother........." I scowled at Ness as she rolled her eyes in the most Edward like way possible.

"It's only three days Love, then we get to go to school together again. Is it just me or does that sound kind of fun...?" Edward pulled me tighter to him and murmured into my hair, "We still have tonight though."

"Ok." I sighed into his chest and he pulled away from me a little. "So we'd better go and get you packed."

"Three days." He said and I smiled wanly, yes only three days, but it would feel longer.

**A/N. Hi, this is my first fan fic, so if you liked it, or didn't, please let me know. I've already written most of it in my head, so just need to get it on paper, it's fairly long, but I think ok. I was a bit disappointed by Breaking Dawn, so wanted to finish Edward and Bella's story in a slightly different fashion. Thanks for reading!**

**PS - Thanks to Bibliophile224 for the help with my geography!**


	4. Wendle

**Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight!**

We made a point of arriving at our new home like any other family making a big move. We arrived alongside a large removal lorry, hired without the helpful, yet human, removal men. The new house was in a secluded clearing a long way out of town, but still the road which led us to it had several other large properties on it with neighbours who would doubtlessly be on the lookout for us.

The town we were moving to was called Wendle, on the outskirts of Calgary. It was small, but less friendly than Forks. Due to the vicinity of Calgary it was missing much of the small town-ness, and acted as a commuter hub, rather than a place in its own right.

The house was beautiful, maybe 1920s or 30s, big and square with bold features, built of white stones so there was no need to paint it. Esme had decorated it in our signature white colour scheme, so it felt like home as soon as we opened the door. There were 3 floors, the ground floor was split into just two rooms, a spacious living room, with Edward's piano already in situ in the large window to the West of the building. The other room was a cavernous kichen, which included a long dining table and games area. The first floor had six rooms which were split between Carlisle, Esme, Jasper and Alice, then the second floor was being left to Edward and myself, and of course Ness. She claimed the most distant room on the floor as soon as we arrived, and with that was gone with her Ipod and a copy of Jane Eyre.

"So Bella, have you finished unpacking yet?" Only Alice could think I would be finished already, only 20 minutes after we'd arrived. Even at Vampire speed I still couldn't see how she got so much done so fast.

"No, I'm still trying to work out how I want to arrange the room, and I haven't even found my clothes yet..." I trailed off wondering how on earth I was going to be ready to start school in the morning.

"You mean everything's still sitting in cases! It will wrinkle!" Alice rushed off immediately to find my wardrobe, one which she guarded with as much care as her own these days.

"Can you find the rest of Edward's stuff too?" I called after her. Edward had taken some things with him when he left Denali ahead of us a few days ago, but most of his clothes and music had come with us today.

I looked around our new room. It was larger than the one in the mansion back in Forks, I supposed because our room there had originally only been meant for one. The classic white colour scheme was the same, but this time instead of the gold colours which had been used on the upholstery and carpets everything was rich shades of blue.

I knew I should really stay and help unload the lorry, but having missed my husband unbearably for the last three days I decided it was time for a visit, relying on Alice to deal with my wardrobe, and most likely the rest of my stuff (she would be delighted I was sure) I excused myself and set off at a run through the trees to Edward.

I could reach the town house in about 3 minutes on foot at full vampire speed. Esme had chosen our locations well, and the forest our main home was in encroached almost to the back door of the town house, despite the fact this was a much more suburban area. I paused to take a look at the house and saw it was much more modern than Esme's usual choice, but looking around most of the houses were identical copies of each other. None the less it was a pretty fifties house, painted a tasteful shade of green, very in keeping with the area.

I listened, and heard Edward upstairs listening to music in a room at the side of the house. He wasn't expecting us for several hours yet, but we had left a little earlier than expected as I had wanted to surprise him. I was still the only one who ever managed to do that. I crept up the side of the house, and slipped into the room, finding Edward on the bed with his eyes closed and headphones on.

"Guess who?" I laid on the bed next to him with my hands over his eyes.

He smiled and rolled over to look at me as I moved my hands to the sides of his face. "That might have worked, if you just didn't smell so damn good Love." We kissed and lying next to him I felt whole again. The three days we were apart had been long to me.

"Missed you."

"Missed you too, you're early." He scowled a little, playfully, before he smiled and continued. "I'm glad."

"So, is this your room, or our room?" I looked around us. The room was done out much like our old room in Forks, but was much smaller and contained very little of Edward's vast music collection. The bed was the dominant feature, which for people who didn't sleep was perhaps a little unfortunate.

"Always our room Love. I thought it might be useful, to have somewhere a little more private just for us." I thought of our daughter back in our other home and understood where he was headed.

"So this is our little love nest then?" I was thrilled, the dominant bed suddenly making so much more sense.

"Hello Bella!" Emmett made me jump as he greeted me from elsewhere in the house and then laughed loudly.

"_He_ will not always be here." Edward restrained a grin as he pulled me towards him and kissed me firmly on the lips. "Hmmm, I've missed my wife..."

I heard Emmett and Rosalie leaving the house, probably to go and help the rest of the family with moving. I felt a bit bad for a moment, until Edward distracted me again.

"So, have you met the neighbours? Are they scared yet?" I was joking, but really that was why they had gone ahead of us, to be seen and meet some people, begin creating the lie.

"We have, I should say I have, Rose and Emmett have been busy with their little project, I've hardly seen them." He sat up a little and carried on. "Everyone I've spoken to seems to be quite comfortable with our story, I've made a point of being out the front, washing the car and doing the garden, you know, to see and be seen."

The story was much as we had decided at that first meeting. Rosalie was Carlisle's sister, who had recently moved home to Alaska with her new husband and his brother. When Carlisle had moved his family for work she had decided to come too as they were each other's only family. Edward and I had met a few months before when he had first moved to Alaska, and we were dating. The only scandal I could imagine may actually set tongues wagging would be Jasper and Alice, but then maybe not.

"Actually I think we've chosen quite an easy location here." Edward continued. "We're not in Forks anymore, most of the people I've spoken to have only moved here in the last few years themselves, we're just more newcomers. Nobody has actually been that interested."

"Hopefully the same will be true tomorrow when we start school, maybe we can blend into the background a bit." I still hated the thought of being the centre of attention if I could at all avoid it, and was not really looking forward to tomorrow.

"You? Never." Edward pulled me towards him and ran his hands down my shoulders, then down my sides and around my waist. I grasped my fingers into his hair and pulled his lips to mine.

"Did I say I liked the bed....?" I murmured around his kisses.

"It was implied, Love." We both laughed as we settled in to enjoy my first night in Wendle.

**A/N – I know it's all been a bit fluffy so far (but then I always liked a bit of fluff), but things are about to get going a bit more in the next couple of chapters. Please review if you have time, all input welcomed.**


	5. High School

Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight!

The next morning I made my way back to the house early, in time to get ready for school. I was not surprised when I got there to find our room and closets had been completely unpacked, and I even had a new school bag ready to go. I did think the Buffy pencil case was maybe a joke too far though.

"Thank you Alice." I muttered with a smile while I tried to work out what on earth to wear today. It was a while since I'd been so close to humans and I wanted to make sure I got it right. Edward had been working for the last three years, but I had chosen to stay at home and take care of Ness while she was unable to leave the confines of home due to her rapid growth.

"No problem Bella." She danced into the room already dressed and ready to go. "I've laid out some clothes for you to help you blend in. I saw you'd have some trouble." She smiled and I wondered what I might have chosen left to my own devices.

"Excellent, is Ness up?"

"Up and ready, she's doing some last minute work with Esme to ensure she looks human enough." Alice smiled. "She's going to be fine. I think her biggest worry is that she's going to school with you and Edward, not many people have to go to school with their parents! Maybe you should focus on trying to let her do her own thing as much as possible."

"I intend to, I'm more concerned about myself at the moment actually, this is going to be the first time I've had to spend such long periods of time in close contact with humans." My voice dropped a little. "I'm worried I might get thirsty."

"You'll be fine Bella, I've seen it, you'll blend in much better than me, Edward and Jazz, you were still human five years ago, it will all come very naturally to you.

"What car are we taking?" I'd not thought about it but I realised that most of our cars were really too ostentatious to take with us. I suddenly missed the Volvo, the least flashy of our cars, but Edward had traded it in once I bought him a new "day car".

"Well, Jazz actually bought us a new Audi last week for school, something understated. Ness will come with us too." Alice smiled at me.

"Ness? What about me?" I imagined arriving for school in my Ferrari and the level of attention it would create, I'm sure half the classrooms would be empty as the male population of the school ogled it. The thought made my insides curl up in embarrassment.

Then I heard a familiar sound. I looked out of the window and saw Edward pull up outside in his Alfa Romeo I'd bought him for his '21st' birthday. Rosalie had assured me that he would love it, and that it was a car for someone 'in the know'. She was right it would seem, as he chose to drive that over anything these days.

He got out of the car and looked up at me and smiled his beautiful crooked smile. I couldn't help but smile back, before scowling a little. I quickly pulled on my carefully (by Alice) selected jeans and rather figure hugging wrap around top, and ran down to meet him by the car.

"Surely this isn't the point is it? I mean, we aren't supposed to live together." I was worried but Edward was still smiling at me.

"Am I not your boyfriend these days Bella?"

"Well, yes...."

"And did I not drive you to school every day in Forks, the last time I was your boyfriend?" He looked stern, but I could see the humour in his eyes.

"You did...."

"So why can I not drive you to school now that I am your boyfriend again?"

I really had no answer for that. "Ok, but I'm not ready yet, come in and see what Alice and Esme have been up to. The place looks great." I took his hand and pulled him into the house.

"Can I see our room, I've not even been in there yet." The grin on his face made me think that wasn't such a good idea. "By the way did I tell you how utterly, staggeringly beautiful you look today? I absolutely love this...." he pulled me to him and ran his fingers down the neckline of my new top, pausing at the centre of the v-neck.

"You didn't." I laughed and pulled away a little "But we don't want to be late on our first day do we?" I saw Alice, Jasper and Ness heading out for the car, so grabbed my bag and jacket and turned back to Edward. "Ready!"

His shoulders dropped in mock annoyance, "Very well Miss Cullen, let's go meet the townsfolk."

We arrived at school right behind Alice, Jasper and Ness, so we all went to collect our schedules together. The school was much bigger than the one in Forks, and had the institutional feeling I remembered from my school in Phoenix. The large buildings were all modern, with chain fencing separating us from the outside world. The metal detectors made me smile internally when I realised they would not pick up the most dangerous weapons in the school today.

Obviously, Edward managed to charm the lady behind the desk immediately, so we were in nearly all the same classes together. Edward, Alice and I were all entering the school as Juniors, Jasper was going to be starting as a Senior and Ness as a Sophomore. Due to the size of the school it was unlikely we would see Jasper or Ness again before lunch, so as we parted I hugged Ness fiercely.

"You'll be fine, just smile and be friendly." I smiled at her hoping she wasn't as nervous as I felt.

"I know Mom, chill out." Ness rolled her eyes as she turned and made her way to class without a second glance.

"Ok, I'm sure I was never a teenager like that."I turned to Edward with my eyebrows raised in irritation. I would have thought Ness and I would have been more on the same wavelength than most mothers and daughters, being so close in age.

"You weren't Love, but then you were far from ordinary you know." Edward was smiling before suddenly glaring ferociously at a passing student. "Uggh. Really!" He spluttered, "It used to drive me insane listening to all this babble before, but now I'm being bombarded with lewd thoughts about my _wife and daughter _from all sides! I'm not sure I'm going to make it through the day without biting someone." He pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger and closed his eyes.

"Are people very interested in us?" I glanced around quickly and noted a lot of faces looking our way.

"Yes, especially the boys! I don't know how much of this I can take, I'm about to explode with rage!" He calmed slightly and looked at me with a half smile. "You really don't help matters standing there looking like you just fell from heaven. Most of the males in this corridor are having extreme fantasies about you as we speak!" There was an icy tone to his voice which I was sure was not directed at me.

"I may be able to help you with that if you like." I said casually. I was now well practiced with my shield, and it bent to my will without any effort on my part. I pushed it out and wrapped it around Edward gently. "Better?"

"What!" Edward virtually cried out in surprise. "Yes! Oh. I didn't know you could do that?" Previously I had only been able to shield other people so Edward couldn't hear them specifically, but recently I had worked out how to pull him in behind the shield to exclude every thought to him, bar mine. He looked about him startled by the sudden internal silence, his face absolutely shone with delight.

_It has its disadvantages. _I knew that Edward would now be able to hear my thoughts, but I was sure he would be even happier about that

"Doesn't sound like a disadvantage to me." He raised his eyebrows quizzically. "How long can you do that for?"

"Indefinitely, I think. Well, until I want to think about something without you knowing about it anyway." I half turned away from him and started to walk to class, still watching him over my shoulder.

He looked around the hallway in wonder at the dozens of students milling past him who were no longer invading his mind. "It's amazing." He was still frozen in place enjoying the silence. "I will probably need to listen out for what people are thinking about us at some point......" He looked quickly back to me. "Not right now though!"

As the morning progressed we made our way from class to class, taking notes but paying little attention. Now Edward was able to hear my thoughts we could have a near constant conversation without any of the humans around us being aware. My worries about returning to High School had proved unfounded. Although I was surrounded by humans, I was not at all interested in them, either to speak to or eat; I was relieved Edward had weaved his magic with the administrator who controlled our schedules so I could spend the entire day with him.

The size of the school was such that, despite being in the same year as Alice we didn't see her until lunch. English, our final class beforehand, had let out slightly late, so by the time we sat down with our trays of food to play with both she and Jasper were already seated.

"You will have to speak to someone else at some point you know you two, that _is_ the point of us coming to High School." Alice scowled at us both disapprovingly."

"I know Alice, but really, at the moment no one seems to want to speak to us." I looked around the cafeteria and saw lots of staring eyes, but no one making any attempt to approach us. I saw Ness on the other side of the room on a full table talking animatedly. "At least Ness seems to be blending in better than us."

"Actually Bella, I'm sure plenty of people would try and speak to you, if only Edward wasn't glaring at anyone who comes within ten feet of you as if he wanted to kill them." Alice turned on him. "Really Edward, they are High School Children!" She glared at him, clearly carrying on her rant in her mind only now.

"Sorry Alice, I can't hear you." He grinned at her surprised expression. "Bella's cut me off. It's fantastic. Also it's probably _preventing me from_ _killing_ _someone_ today, so please don't complain."She had started to speak again, but stopped.

"But how will we know if anyone is suspicious of us Edward? You are supposed to be watching out for us, would you leave us exposed?" I was surprised when Jasper rebuked us, surely he of all people would understand how difficult this could be for Edward today, being surrounded by so many people?

"I will keep checking Jasper, but really, if you could hear people thinking things like that about Alice, let alone your daughter!" He paused exasperated. "I do not have limitless control you know."

"Especially when it comes to Bella." Jasper nodded sagely. He watched Edward for a moment and seemed concerned, although he made no further comment. I wondered how angry Edward actually was behind his good humour. He wasn't known for his rationality when it came to me.

"What are Emmett and Rosalie up to today Edward?" Alice changed the subject. She glanced at me with meaning though, and I understood we would be having words later.

"It's the first day for them too. They took ownership of the auto shop today, and were planning to open up and do some jobs they've inherited from the previous owners. They don't have any staff at the moment so they'll have to do all of the work themselves, but I think that's kind of the point." He stopped and smiled indulgently. "Emmett was so excited this morning, I think this is pretty much his first job ever!"

"And Rosalie?" Alice said.

"Just as excited, but not in quite such a "5 year old on Christmas morning" kind of way."

"I'm glad." Alice got up from the table. "I need to go and speak to someone before my next class. Bella, I think you have Physics next as well don't you, so maybe you could come with me?"

I recognised the look in her eye and got up obediently to follow her. I'm sure Jasper and Edward were also aware that the person she needed to speak to was me. We dumped our uneaten food in the waste bins and dropped off our trays, before heading outside.

"Bella, you know what I'm going to say." Alice spoke as soon as we'd made it a reasonable distance from the cafeteria. I'd pulled my shield away from Edward as I'd left, so he was probably checking out what the other students thought of the new arrivals by now. "I understand that it's difficult for Edward hearing things about you and Ness, but we need him to be watchful at the moment. Protecting the family is the _most important thing_."

"I know, but he was getting so angry I was genuinely worried about him Alice. He's not had to deal with this so intensely before and you know how protective of us he is." What I said was true, but I also liked the fact I _could_ protect him, and make his life a little bit easier.

"He's not going to do anything, I'd have seen it. I want you to promise me not to keep shielding him."

"Honestly Alice, how can I promise you that? If he asks me to protect him from something that's making him unhappy? Would you be able to deny the same to Jasper?" I gazed at her almost accusingly; surely things were not so bad that Edward should be denied a little peace?

She didn't speak for what felt like a long while. "I would not." She stated simply and paused. "But Edward has put up with the voices in his head for nearly a century Bella, he's used to it and he's strong. He'll be ok."

"He hasn't had to watch and listen to graphic descriptions of what numerous young men would like to do with his wife and daughter before. Give him a break Alice, just for a short while, once we settle in people will get bored of us, and he'll get used to tuning it out again." I could see I was winning her round. "I won't cover him all the time, just enough to stop him losing it." I didn't really believe he would lose it, I just didn't want him to suffer if I could prevent it.

"Ok Bella, I'll trust your judgement. That does still leave us with one other problem though."

"What's that?" I was surprised, I'd found today remarkably easy so far, and thought it had been going well.

"The idea of us coming to High School is to create the lie. Have you or Edward spoken to one other person, other than each other, today?"

"Erm...." I could see her point. We had been a little wrapped up in our own world. That was probably why today had been so easy. "I see. Point made Alice, I'll go and talk nicely to the humans."

"Edward too Bella. You should be making it easier this time around, I know it's not your fault, you two get caught up in your own little world, but you have to make an effort." I tried not to smile at her scolding tone.

The bell went and it was time to get to class. This would be the first time Edward, Alice and I had all had a class together in our new school, so we hurried off to Physics. I was amazed at the knot in my stomach at the thought of trying to talk to some new people. It seemed all my old shyness was still there, under the calm vampire exterior.

When we arrived I was dismayed to see most of the seats were taken, and Edward was nowhere to be seen. I sat down next to a short dark haired girl in glasses and made good on my promise to Alice.

"Hello, my name is Bella Cullen." The girl looked at me for a moment, and didn't reply. I saw her eyes grow wider and her continued silence made me realise I was "dazzling" her. I looked down at my books to allow her to collect her thoughts.

".....hi.... Hello." Her voice recovered after a moment. "My name's Jayne, are you new?" Only in a school this size would everybody not be instantly aware of my family's arrival.

"Yes, I just moved down from Alaska with my family. My sister Alice is sitting just over there." I pointed out Alice on the other side of the room chatting to a short blond boy, at the mention of her name she turned in her seat and waved at Jayne and me.

"Do you have just the one sister?" Jayne seemed nice, and after her initial confusion seemed quite happy to speak to me. Maybe this wasn't going to be so difficult.

"Alice is my twin actually, we also have a younger sister called Ness, she's a Sophomore, and we have another boy who my parents are fostering living with us called Jasper." I smiled encouragingly at Jayne, willing her to ask another question, but at that point I heard Edward walk into the room. I looked up and smiled at him, but he scowled at me and went to sit down at the final free seat in the class. I wondered what he had been doing to be so late.

"Oh - my – God!" Jayne was looking at Edward with her mouth open wide. "Did you just see that guy walk into the room? He is H-O-T." She looked at me obviously keen to share the ogling, but I was struggling with the urge to knock her out of the window with a flick of my wrist. I suddenly understood why Edward was struggling so much with hearing other boys thoughts about me today.

Thinking of him I wrapped him up in my shield again, from behind I saw the side of his face raise in what I could only hope was a smile. _Hello my love, where have you been? I would have saved you a seat, but this class is a bit too full. _He tipped his head slightly toward me in acknowledgment. _Alice doesn't want me to do this for you anymore, but let's make it our little secret. _He nodded ever so slightly, but did not turn to acknowledge me.

Meanwhile Jayne was still looking at me waiting for my agreement over the hotness of my husband. "Yes, that's Edward. He is indeed H-O-T." I saw Edward's face raise in a smile again.

"You know him?" Jayne breathed.

"Yes, he's my.." I stuttered for a fraction of a second over the word husband, "boyfriend. We've been going out for a while now. His family moved down from Alaska with ours, his brother is married to my aunt."

"Doesn't that make you related?" Jayne raised her eyebrows at me slightly.

"No it doesn't! Anyway, I'm adopted so my aunt isn't even strictly related to me in that sense." I could feel myself getting irritated, and forced myself to calm down. "I'll introduce you to him after class if you like."

Jayne smiled at me her eyes large again, but turned to the front as the teacher joined us. I'd never done much Physics in High School the first time around, so I was surprised to find I was actually interested to hear the lesson.

I looked back over toward Edward and wondered again why he had been so late to class. He was hunched in his chair with his hands clenched tightly together, I called his name in my head but he did not acknowledge me. The fact that he hadn't looked around or answered my internal question, which he could easily have done without any of the humans noticing, had not escaped me.

**A/N - Wow, my first review, thanks very much! Please do review if you are enjoying my story, reviews make me type faster ********.**


	6. Revelations

As the bell went at the end of class Edward jumped out of his seat and headed for the door without a glance back at me. Thoroughly irritated, and quickly edging towards panicked, I rushed after him, maybe a little faster than I should have done in public. I caught up with him in the hall and grabbed his arm. He resisted me at first, and then turned to face me. I examined his face for a moment, to anyone else he would have looked arrogant, angry even, but I saw something behind that.

"What aren't you telling me?" I demanded. It was so unlike him to not look at me, if I'd still been human my heart would have been racing by now.

"It's nothing to worry about Love. I just came really close. It was stupid." He looked to the ground, clearly berating himself internally for something.

"Let's go." I didn't know what he was trying to tell me, but I decided it wasn't going to be anything good. Wordlessly I guided him out to the car park and found the Alfa, the last class of the day would have to cope without us.

Edward drove in silence for a few minutes until we were well away from the school, then he pulled onto a side street and stopped the car. He leant his head on the steering wheel as he spoke to me. "It's not what you think. When you left to speak to Alice and I started hearing everyone's thoughts again, I got so _angry_. So many of the boys near us were thinking about you, it overwhelmed me. Then one of the boys sitting next to Ness started having absolutely disgusting thoughts about her, and I saw red, I couldn't restrain myself. I was half way across the room before Jasper had a chance to catch hold of me."

I put my hand on his thigh and squeezed it gently. I waited patiently for the rest.

"I don't even know for sure what I was going to do, I hope I wasn't about to attack him physically, I don't think I was. Would it be any better though if I started to scream at the child to not think such things about my daughter? That is going to attract attention on so many levels." He turned to me and managed a half smile. "Did you think I'd had lunch in the cafeteria?"

"Don't be silly, I know you better than that. I can sympathise too you know, that girl who was undressing you with her eyes during Physics just now nearly lost an arm." I reached out and touched his hair. I loved it now he was back at school and it was in its natural state again, I would not allow him to style it differently again.

"I will be able to restrain myself next time," He sounded determined, if not completely convincing, "We've just been too closeted away at home in Forks for too long. Meanwhile thank God you can shield me from some of it; I'd thought I had a better hold on my temper than that." He looked at me thoughtfully for a moment. "You are my undoing you know." He spoke quietly now, and I saw shame in his eyes.

"You know Alice and Jasper are worried about what you may miss if you're not listening to everyone. She asked me not to shield you." I saw Edward's face darken as I spoke.

"She can't really believe that I would put them at risk?" He raised his eyebrows in disbelief.

After his reaction at lunch today I decided to play our conversation down, I didn't want him to feel so guilty he wouldn't allow me to protect him at all. "No, she was just reminding me is all." I decided to play it safe "We'll make sure we let it down sometimes to give you the chance to look out for any problems."

"Alice still won't like it." I could see he was building up to telling me he would have to forgo our little arrangement, so I stopped him.

"It will be our little secret."

"Very well, thank you." He looked relieved, "I just can't believe how close I got today, I'm so sorry, it was unforgivable." He put his head back in his hands.

"Edward, don't be silly, I understand, I'm sure you wouldn't have really done anything." He didn't move. "Honestly, stop beating yourself up, no blood no foul!" I was relieved as he looked up at me and smiled at the in-joke.

He pulled me into his arms and ran his hands down my shoulders and into the small of my back, seeking comfort. I hugged him back, as I wrapped him carefully in my shield and filled my thoughts with my love and trust for him. With time to think about it I realised that he wasn't so much behind my shield anymore, as I was holding his mind with my mind. It felt very intimate and tender to me, I wondered what it felt like to him.

Without pulling away from me he whispered into my ear "Yes, it feels like that to me too, as if you are holding me in my mind. It's an extraordinary feeling."

He kissed me tenderly in the hollow beneath my ear, and trailed his lips lightly across my skin until they met mine. I slid my hand up his neck, and around into his hair until I was cradling his head with my arm, I grasped my fingers into his hair and pulled him more firmly to me. His mood shifted and his kiss became urgent. He ran his left hand back up my body and paused on my breast, cupping it firmly. I started to think in great detail about last night in our new bed. I remembered his hands caressing my neck, my shoulders, and the feel of his weight on top of me. I thought about the touch of his skin on mine, our chests pushed together, his fingers trailing across my hips in delicious little circles......

Edward pulled away from me in a hurry and started the engine. "I think it would be better for us to try not to attract any further attention to ourselves today by getting arrested. Maybe we had better go home." I laughed at the picture his words had created in my mind, and then even more so when I could see him wrestling with the same picture in his. He closed his eyes and shook his head little to clear the thought.

I pulled him away from my shield and said "I'll stop distracting you while you're driving."

He rolled his eyes at me in mock annoyance as he pulled away.

It only took a few minutes to arrive back at the main house at Edward's break neck pace. He had been good humoured on the drive home, but as we pulled onto the driveway his face fell. "Oh for the love of God." he muttered.

He was at my door in an instant and helped me out of the car. He held onto my hand and without a word led us into the house.

Inside Carlisle and Esme were standing with Alice and Jasper, clearly waiting for us. I wondered why Carlisle wasn't at work, and why Alice and Jasper had left school early, but then I realised Ness wasn't with them. "Is Ness ok, what's happened?"

No one answered me, Edward didn't even break step as he led me straight to my seat in the dining room, Carlisle, Esme, Alice and Jasper followed us and sat down.

Edward turned to Carlisle and finally broke the silence. "Is this really such a big issue Carlisle?" The tone of his voice was calm, but I could detect anger beneath the surface.

"I think it is Edward."He glanced at me, then back to Edward's unflinching glare. "You know how important this is."

"I do, and I _am_ taking it seriously"

"Are you?"

"Would somebody please tell me what's going on!" I had figured out now that this was not about Ness, but the one-sided conversation was driving me crazy.

"Carlisle thinks I am not taking my role seriously enough." Edward turned to me. "He thinks I should no longer allow you to shield me so as to ensure I hear anything people may be saying about us. He also thinks my reaction today at school was unreasonable.

"I never said unreasonable Edward, simply over the top," Carlisle looked at me now. "I'm sure it must be wonderful Bella, to be able to protect Edward from the thoughts that surround him, but that doesn't change the fact that we _need _him to watch for us, we are very exposed without knowing the thoughts of those around us. Knowing that someone has suspected something has saved us from exposure more than once."

I opened my mouth to apologise to Carlisle, and swear to never do it again, when Edward interrupted me. "You do realise, Carlisle, that you are not _actually_ my father, don't you?" He said the words quietly but their meaning was clear.

There was a stunned silence around the table. I realised I had never heard a moment of discord between Edward and his beloved father figure, I looked between them as I felt a wave of calm fill the room.

Jasper was the first to break the silence. "Why are you feeling so angry Edward? It's so unlike you."

Edward glared at him but did not reply.

"We simply wish to understand Edward. What's the matter?" Esme got up and walked around the table to stand beside him. She put her arms around his shoulders and leant her head on his.

Edward sighed and looked up at her, I saw from the corner of my eye Jasper relax as his face softened. "I've been dreading this for months, more than that maybe." Edward looked at me before he continued. "I wish you could see how difficult this is for me. I am not the same person I was the last time, when we moved to Forks. Then, although I was actually much older, I was still living as a 17 year old boy, no responsibilities, no one else to worry about."

I smiled at him as I considered the fact that his life had been changed as much by me, as mine was by him.

"Over the last few years everything has changed, I am now a husband, a father. I have actually grown up, something I had thought I'd done already. I've finally found a job I can do which really satisfies me, and I had everything, _everything _I'd ever wanted and much, much more besides. My wife, my daughter, a _real life." _As he spoke he had become more animated, he gently eased himself away from Esme, stood up and walked to the window. "And now, to try to return to High School. I am unable to introduce Bella as my wife, no one can know Renesme is my daughter, I am doing the same tired school work again instead of doing something that makes a real difference to people's lives!"

He turned back to face us quietly, the pain he was feeling visible in his eyes. I restrained myself from going to him, allowing him to finish his confession.

"Finally, to hear every thought of every teenage boy looking at my beloved family_, _and being unable to stop it. It's simply intolerable." He closed his eyes and hung his head, I was sure this admission of what he would see as weakness had cost him a great deal, so I gave in to my urge and ran to pull him to me.

Everyone remained quiet as I held Edward and stretched up to kiss him softly. "You still have us you know Edward." I whispered, despite the fact I knew everyone else in the room would still be able to hear. "This is only pretend, your _real life _is still here."

"The stupid thing is Bella; I know that. I am just finding adjusting..... difficult." He whispered back to me, struggling with his words in a way I had never heard before.

We stayed like that, unmoving, for several minutes, until I pulled away from Edward and led him back to his seat.

"Are you saying you are unable to do this Edward? Are you not able to play the role we have created for you?" Carlisle's face was not angry, I struggled with his familiar features for a moment, before deciding that he looked understanding.

"I don't know." Edward and Carlisle looked at each other for a long time and I knew Edward was listening to his thoughts. "Yes, exactly. Imagine for a moment having to give up being a doctor, and to have to go and pretend to go back to college for a few years. Imagine being unable to stand up and proclaim to the world, this is my family." They were quiet for another moment before he added, "Yes, that isn't helping either."

"What isn't helping?" I couldn't help it, the words were out of my mouth before I'd thought about it.

"Emmett and Rosalie living separately this time, I envy them."

I suddenly thought of the time, "How's Ness getting home Alice, should we go and get her?" She had looked ok when I'd seen her around school today but I was desperate to hear how she'd found her first real day in the human world.

"Don't worry Bella, she's going to be late." Alice grinned but I frowned, concerned that she was in trouble already. "No no, don't worry, she's going to cheerleader tryouts."

Cheerleader tryouts? I turned the idea over in my head and decided I wasn't surprised. I was starting to understand Ness's moodiness recently. She was actually half human, surrounded constantly by vampires, could I blame her for wanting to discover a little more about her human side?

Meanwhile, everyone else around the table had turned to Carlisle, waiting for some kind of answer to today's developments. "Edward, if you feel that you cannot continue here, I will understand. I don't doubt that Bella would follow you to wherever you decided to go instead," He looked at me and I didn't need to voice my agreement. "But I think you would have to accept that Ness would want to stay here with us."

My eyes widened in shock "No!" Leave my daughter behind? What was he thinking?

"Bella, you've seen how quickly she's thrown herself into things today." Alice said. "Every time I've seen her she's looked so happy. I'm sure she would be so upset to have to give it up again so quickly."

Edward caught my eye and stared at me. I stared back, I would do whatever he needed me to do for him, even if that included moving Ness, and he knew it, he looked back to Carlisle. "I don't want to leave you Carlisle, and I don't want to hurt Bella or Ness. I can do it, I'll stay and play my part." I heard resolve in his voice. "But, I think maybe next time we will have to rethink, by then Ness will be fully grown, so able to choose what's best for herself, and I think Bella and I may have to try this living as grown-ups thing out." He glanced back to me and smiled mischievously, "You will have to stop complaining about my hair though Love."

"And you will continue to listen for danger?" Jasper still looked tense, I knew that his fear of suspicion came from his love for Alice rather than worry about himself.

"I will." Edward looked back at him utterly confident.

At that our conversation was finished. Alice and Jasper left the house to pick up Ness, while Edward, and I made our way upstairs to do the homework we had been assigned today. As we walked, hand in hand at human pace, he leant into my ear and breathed so quietly that I could hardly even hear it myself, "Our little secret, Love."

**A/N – I'm English, so have never experienced American/Canadian High School myself, so please let me know if I've made any mistakes. Please Please Please review me! There's a bite in the next chapter, and I'll be bound to post it quickly if I get a few more reviews! Thank you! Ria.**


	7. Living the Lie

Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight!

So over the rest of that week we continued to live the lie, forming a strange kind of routine around our new circumstances. Every evening after school Edward would drop me off at the main house, before returning to Emmett and Rosalie's place in town. Leaving the car prominently outside he would then run back to me to continue with our real life. In the morning he would go and collect the car, returning a few short minutes later to drive me to school.

Ness threw herself into school life with real exuberance. She (of course) made it onto the cheerleading team and became an immediate part of the "in crowd" in her year. Her mood improved and to my delight she came home keen to tell me about her day in her own unique way for the first time in months. She never mentioned it to me, but Edward said he suspected there was also a boy leading to some of her improved outlook.

Edward and I had our own secret little routine in place as well. We had spoken much more about his feelings of frustration about "pressing the reset button" as he put it, and I wanted to help him in any way I could. I continued to shield him from the thoughts of our classmates, as long as Alice and Jasper were not around.

I wasn't sure if Alice knew what we were doing, she never usually missed a thing, but she gave no sign that she did. I decided that it must be a good thing, as surely if there were any consequences to what we were doing she would have seen them. I would allow him to listen intermittently so as he could be sure that we were not in any immediate danger, but usually as long as we were out of Alice's company I would shield him immediately.

By Friday I was beginning to relax. I had spoken to more of my fellow students and was finding, to my surprise, that I actually enjoyed talking to them as well.

"Do you like dancing?" Jayne and I were fast becoming friends and I was finding I looked forward to Physics each day to speak to her. She was intelligent with a sharp wit, and I had forgiven her for her understandable ogling of my husband on our first day. I was surprised by her opening gambit that afternoon. "I mean proper dancing, like waltz, and stuff." She wrinkled her nose slightly.

"Well-" I still winced at the thought of dancing, despite the fact that Bella the vampire could dance far better than Bella the human had ever dreamed of. "I do, why do you ask?"

Jayne's eyes dropped to the table in embarrassment before she answered. "My Mom and Dad do a lot of charity stuff, and they're having a ball at the Pavilion hotel this weekend, she's asked me to try and drum up some support, they had a few cancellations at the last minute." I could see she was uncomfortable asking me, I figured this might be because there would be a price attached to the invitation.

"That sounds like it might be fun, sort of like a prom?" I found I didn't have to fake enthusiasm, dancing with Edward would definitely be fun, and it would be a chance to meet more of the town and show them how normal we were. I decided we ought to hunt this evening in preparation, we hadn't had a chance to explore our new hunting grounds yet and a warm room packed full of humans would be uncomfortable if we were thirsty. "But obviously if it's for charity we would want to make a donation or something....." I trailed off and saw she looked relieved.

"The tickets are $50 each, so that would be great."

"Maybe my parents would want to go, and my Aunt and her husband, and Alice and her boyfriend." I saw Alice dart a tiny nod out of the corner of my eye. I could see tomorrow would be another day of playing dress up.

"Is Alice dating that blond guy I see you with at lunch?" Jayne's eyes were curious, and I knew what the next question was going to be.

"Yes, that's Jasper."

"And is he your parent's foster son?" Jayne was trying not to look too interested, but I was all too aware that this fact would give rise to, hopefully, the juiciest gossip on the Cullens.

"Yes, he's only been with us for a short while, he's actually the son of a friend of the family." I saw Jayne taking careful mental note, so as to be able to pass this little titbit on word for word at another time.

"And you will go with Edward." This wasn't a question, but I answered anyway.

"Yes, he likes dancing too." Edward was in his seat at the front of the class and, I was certain, listening to our conversation intently. I was sure he would be delighted to spend an evening dancing with me, along with the rest of the family. I remembered dancing with him at my High School Prom and was sorry that, as Alice was in the room, I couldn't share my memories with him.

"I'll tell my Mom to put you down for 8 tickets. Thank you so much, that will really get her off my back!"

"My pleasure, I'll see if my other sister wants to go too and give you a call later if that's ok?" I wondered vaguely if Ness would want to take a boy from her class, or even go at all, but I would give her the option.

Then the teacher walked in and we turned to face the front. Edward turned to me and flashed me a wide smile, and I daydreamed a little about dancing the night away with him in his black tuxedo.

When class let out we waved to Alice and headed off to French, our final class of the day.

"I never thought I'd see the day Bella!" He teased. "Volunteering to dance with me, do you think you'll be able to cope with the horror?"

"I'm not sure I'll be able to cope with the dressing up for 6 hours beforehand with Alice, but the dancing – I'm looking forward to that." I pulled him back into my shield and remembered my Prom again, how handsome he looked in his tuxedo and the feeling of whirling around the room in his arms. I glossed over the broken leg, no need to bring back unpleasant memories.

He was smiling when he said "I remember that too, I also remember having to virtually pry you out of the car you were so cross with me for taking you." I smiled back, I wouldn't have believed it if you'd told me at the time, but I was glad he'd made me go.

We walked into class and sat down together in the back row. I turned to the boy sitting next to me who was called Andrew, and said hello. He was sweet and very friendly, I asked him if he was going to the charity ball tomorrow night.

"My parents are, but I'm not. A lot of other kids are going though, so it should be a good night." I smiled at him encouragingly, I could see he was desperately shy of talking to me, the blush in his cheeks caused my throat to burn.

Class began, but I wasn't paying attention. My French was almost as good as Edward's these days, so I was using it as time to talk to him instead. Between him reading my mind, and speaking faster and quieter than human ears could hear, we could have a perfectly normal conversation without anyone else noticing.

"You know, if we are intending on not going to High School again, you need to consider what you want to do at college rather carefully." Edward murmured but I could hear him clearly.

_As in to find a career you mean? _I had once held dreams of becoming a novelist, but now I thought that I would need to find something else.

"Yes, like a grown up." He winked at me. "I must admit, I like the psychiatry, but I also have a yearning to be able to do what Carlisle does, if I can get past the bloodlust."

_I don't think that's quite me, but having had Ness I would like to do something caring. I understand why Carlisle does it now. _The reason to work would have to be for the job and the life itself, we were lucky not to need to worry about having to pay the rent on time like most people.

I heard Edward's cell phone go off in his pocket, instantly it was pressed against his ear. "What is it Alice?" He hissed into the phone. The ringing had attracted attention around us and I was waiting for the teacher to ask him to hang up.

I could hear Alice as well as if I'd been holding the phone to my own ear. "Edward where are you!" She shrieked at him at lightning speed, a note of hysteria in her voice. "Didn't you see? Didn't you hear me?"

I understood what had happened immediately and pulled away my shield so Edward could see what Alice could see. His eyes widened and he hissed. He was very suddenly out of his seat and making his way to the door as fast as he could under the gaze of our classmates, his books forgotten on his desk.

"Mr McCarty, is there a problem?" Our teacher asked as Edward walked out of the door, but he never even acknowledged the question.

I stood up and started making my way to the door. "I think that was his brother, I'll go and see what's happened." I didn't wait for any response as I slipped out of the door as quickly as Edward had.

Edward was no longer in the corridor when I got there, I followed his scent as fast as was safe in the school building, and caught up enough to see him reach Alice at the edge of the car park, in the shadows. They immediately broke into a run, not waiting for me.

I ran to catch up with them. I could see Edward racing ahead of Alice, down the edge of the forest that surrounded Wendle, he was like a blur. I could still just about see Edward when I caught up to Alice, but he was streaking away faster than I ever remembered seeing him move before.

"Alice, what is it?" Despite the speed at which we were running my voice was steady.

"Emmett's in trouble, I saw him attack someone." She grimaced.

"When?"

"Now, I think. It's going to be really close."

I saw a sign coming up ahead of us saying 'Wendle Auto Service and Repairs' and realised we were going to Emmett and Rosalie's auto shop. I'd not been there yet and noted the new signs and professional looking setup.

We slowed down as we ducked out of the forest and ran quickly, but at human speed, towards the shop. I saw an old red Ford, with its rear lights smashed, outside the big doors at the front. They weren't open, but I saw a small door to the left of them standing ajar, a sign in the window said "Welcome!" We raced through it and came to a dead stop beside Edward, just inside.

In front of us was a scene that if I were still human would have made my blood run cold. The shop was almost dark with the big doors closed; the only light coming in was from the small door behind us. There was another car inside with its hood up; there were tools all over the floor and a radio was playing softly in the background. At the rear of the shop there was a desk with a computer and a till, and on the floor in front of it sat Emmett, looking down at the broken, white body of a woman lying still in his arms. As we stood there he looked up at us with burgundy eyes.

We were all silent for a heartbeat, and then Edward spoke. "Bella, shut the door. We have to be quick."


	8. Fabrication

I was rooted to the spot. I had been a vampire for five years, but I had never taken a human life, nor seen one taken. In the instant it took me to take in the broken form in Emmett's lap I finally understood what I was, what we all were. I could smell the blood from the lifeless body in front of me and it smelled good. My throat burned and my mouth filled with venom.

I swallowed disgusted with myself, suddenly despising the vile nature I was burdened with. I struggled to tear my eyes away from Emmett, but I could not. I was frozen, my mind fighting an inner war between desire and revulsion. The glassy eyes of the dark haired woman Emmett had murdered stared at me accusingly, and I felt as guilty then as Emmett surely was.

I realised that only three minutes had passed since Edward had received Alice's phone call, part of my mind was wondering how close it had been.

I could sense Edward watching me for a moment, then he flitted to the door himself and closed it silently.

"What do we do?" Alice murmured. I was still in shock, as far as is possible for a vampire, but Edward was already making plans.

"Emmett, get her out of here, take the body far into the forest and bury her deep enough she will _never_ be found. Alice, I will take the car and dump it out of town, you and Bella stay here and clean up every trace of her." His eyes were blazing, black with bloodlust, and I realised he was fighting the same internal battle as me. "Alice, will it work?"

Alice answered his question by closing her eyes and hunching forward slightly. "It's very hazy; there are so many people around, so many decisions yet to be made." She was still, silent as she searched to see if Edward's simple plan to deal with Emmett's mistake would be enough. Finally she spoke, "No, her car has been seen outside too many times, the questions will eventually lead back to here, to us."

That was her car outside? Of course. The street was busy, there were other shops a little further along and plenty of pedestrians out on this dry, but cloudy, day. Her car would have been seen many times by now; somebody would remember it once the questions started.

"Shit." The word that came out of Edward's mouth made me look up at him in surprise. I couldn't remember hearing him swear since that day so long ago he had saved me from Tyler's van.

Emmett stood up slowly, leaving the woman's body on the floor. "I'm sorry man, I couldn't help it. She smelled so good........... It was dark........ There was no one else here........ She was bleeding......" Emmett continued silently, showing Edward exactly what had taken place to lead us here.

Edward looked pained for a moment then said "I know Emmett, save it for later, we have to fix this." He paced for a few seconds looking around the room, his eyes avoiding the dead woman. "The problem is that her car has been seen here, and at the moment this will be the _last _place it was seen before she vanishes."

He stopped and eyed me and Alice speculatively. "Yes that will work Edward." Alice could see the plan he was forming in his mind, but I didn't like the way he was looking at me.

"Bella, this woman is remarkably similar to you in build and hair colour. If we could make it appear as if she arrived home this evening as normal, it would cloud events to the authorities." I could see he didn't like what he was going to ask me to do next. "If you wear her clothes and drive her car home, I think from a distance anyone seeing you would probably think you were her. Then Emmett and I can setup her house to look as if she was attacked there."

I was horrified at the thought of wearing this poor woman's clothes, all I wanted to do was run away as fast as I could, but Edward's face held me in place. "I can't, please don't ask me to."

"I must, we_ must _protect our family Bella. I'm sorry to have to ask you to do this Love, but it is the only way I can think of to protect you."

"No." My voice was small, I was horrified, but I knew I would do whatever he asked me to.

"Bella." He briefly wrapped his arms around me to comfort me, but too soon he pulled away again. He spoke with authority "We have to hurry, put on her coat and scarf and get into the car. I will come with you. Emmett, bring her behind us on foot, I do not want any blood anywhere it shouldn't be in the car. Alice, clean up this place, I don't want a trace of her left." He spoke so quickly even I had to concentrate to keep up.

Holding my breath I went and knelt beside the woman. She was older than me, maybe 30, with long dark hair and green eyes. I saw a wedding ring on her finger and I had time to hope she didn't have any children as I took her coat and scarf and put them on. I picked up her purse and found her keys and wallet, which I passed to Edward. As I walked at human pace out to the car I heard the whoosh of wind pass me that was my family playing their own parts in this hideous pretence.

I got into the Ford outside; Edward was already in the back, hiding in the foot well. There was a strong smell of blood in the car which caused me to burn again, I looked down and saw a small smudge on the steering wheel. "Where are we going?" My voice sounded strange in my ears.

"Fairdale. Take the next right and keep going, I'll direct you." I didn't know the town very much at all yet, but Edward knew where we were going.

It took us fifteen minutes to reach the woman's home; we drove in silence bar Edward's directions, I kept my hair around my face and ensured I didn't look anyone in the eye as I drove. We arrived at a small tidy house with a red front door.

The house was of a similar style to our town house, there were no toys in the yard and I hoped again that she didn't have children. I knew Emmet was there moments after we arrived, but I didn't want to see him.

I parked in the drive, I could see by the marks on the ground this was the car's usual resting point, then I got out of the car and walked towards the front door. Edward had gone ahead of me at a speed almost invisible to humans, and the door was unlocked.

The house was clean and warm. I saw two used coffee cups by the kitchen sink and regretted that I could not cry for this woman as I pictured her and her husband's formerly happy life. I took off her coat and scarf and hung them on a peg in the hallway.

"Go home Love." Edward was behind me and I turned to face him, "I wish I could have spared you this." He reached out hesitantly and touched my arm, then he turned from me and walked further into the house. As he turned I caught a dead look in his eyes.

I paused, I didn't want to leave him.

"Go!" His voice was harsh now, so I slipped into the shadows and raced for home.

As I ran, I couldn't get the images of the dead woman out of my mind. Once I made it into the forest that surrounded our home I stopped and climbed high into a tree to think. I had always known what I was; I had begged Edward to change me, despite his protests against it. I had even caught the scent of human blood and thirsted for it, but I had somehow deluded myself that I was living in a fairytale, and that we were immune to our true vampire traits.

Today had proven me wrong. Edward had told me that sometimes they, _we,_ slipped up; that we were trying but sometimes it was just too hard. I hadn't really registered what he had meant by that; that, every now and then, one of us would kill someone, because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, or they just smelled too good.

How long until it was my turn?

I struggled to get a grip on my emotions. I felt grief for the woman I had never met, and shame, despite the fact it was not me who had ended her life. Shame for the fact that it had taken _everything_ _I had_ not to taste her blood before I had taken her clothes to fabricate the evidence to protect us. Finally I felt horror at what I was. My new understanding of myself and my nature burned a hole through me, filling me with self loathing.

Through all of this my mind kept coming back to Edward's eyes as I left the woman's house. The dead look which I knew was caused by me.

As much as he claimed to be mystified by me because he was unable to hear my thoughts, I knew that this was no longer truly the case. Our connection had become so profound he no longer needed to hear my thoughts to understand what I was thinking. He had seen my new comprehension in my eyes as soon as I'd felt it. There was a sinking feeling in my stomach when I thought about how this would affect him; he had quashed any guilt about changing me under my joy in my new life. How would he cope with my newfound horror at my nature?

After a few minutes I heard familiar footsteps, and in an instant he was beside me in the tree. He wrapped his arms around me and we were silent for a long time. We watched as the forest grew dark, and the noises of dusk faded into the night.

Finally he spoke "We have to get back to the house Love, everyone else is there, we have to plan. We must watch what happens to ensure we are not implicated." He took a deep breath and looked at me for the first time since he arrived. "Are you ok? Please tell me the truth; I feel like I'm going insane."

"No. I'm not ok Edward" I took in a deep unnecessary breath and looked away from him. "You're right, we must go, I don't want Ness hearing a word about this, and we have to make sure everyone else understands that too."

"Of course," He released me and stepped off the branch into the night. I hesitated, I knew my silence was hurting him, but I feared the pain I might inflict with my words.

I listened to him walking away, he was moving at human speed, waiting, hoping for me to catch him up. Suddenly my love for him overwhelmed everything else I was feeling at that moment and I couldn't bear for him to walk away from me. "Edward." My voice broke, I stepped out of the tree to find him standing beside me when I landed.

I threw myself in his arms with a sob, he held me close as I shook and my breath hitched, until I managed to calm myself a little.

Finally I turned back towards the house, unwillingly. I didn't want to allow Edward to brood for even a moment; he was capable of torturing himself far better than I could. But this evening was far from over.

He understood my movement and said "We have to go. I can hear them. They're waiting for us."

"I know." I took my husband's hand and allowed him to lead me home.

**A/N – Many thanks to everyone who is following this story, I hope you're enjoying it! Please leave me a review as I would love to hear from you! **


	9. Choices

Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight!

I didn't know what I was expecting when we arrived home. Weeping and wailing maybe, sorrow of some sort certainly. So when we walked in the door to such an utterly normal scene I rocked back on my heels in shock.

Emmett and Rosalie were sitting on the sofa watching television, Rosalie laughing as Emmett pulled faces impersonating something they were watching. Alice and Jasper were sitting on the bottom of the stairs; she had her head resting in his lap while he read to her. Esme was busying herself upstairs, tidying by the sound of things, and Carlisle sat in the kitchen behind a large book.

Before I had a chance to recover from my shock Ness bounded up to me with a huge grin on her face, her bronze curls bouncing as she moved. Realisation dawned on me, the scene before me was a charade, for her benefit. I swallowed everything that had been in the last few hours and responded to her smile. "Ness, had a good day?" My voice still sounded a little strained, but she didn't seem to notice.

"Fantastic Mom!" She put her hand to my face and began to show me the highlights of her day. I saw the faces of her new friends, snippets of conversations and then Ness on the top of an enormous cheerleader pyramid, laughing in delight. Finally I saw her speaking on the phone and bouncing up and down in excitement.

"What was that about?" I smiled at her and found to my surprise that it was genuine. The joy emanating from my daughter was contagious and I allowed myself to be swept along by her for now, to help protect her from the truth.

"Your friend Jayne phoned, I answered but she thought I was you! She says our voices are really just the same. Did you know that? Did you Dad?"

She was babbling in excitement and didn't give Edward a chance to reply.

"She said you'd asked her to get tickets for the Jubilee Ball tomorrow night, and she asked if I was going to come. Can I go?" Ness was so excited I could see she was about to start jumping up and down again any second.

"I'm not sure if we're going, your Dad wasn't sure it was a good idea..." I looked at Edward; we had to get out of this without Ness figuring out something was wrong.

"Dad, no!" Ness looked pained and whirled to face him.

"I'm sure it will be fine Love, we're all going so we can watch out for Ness." Edward was looking at me smiling. Why was he going along with this?

"Yes Bella, it will be fine." Alice sang out from across the room.

I glared at Alice, but flawlessly continued to play along in our conversation with our daughter; I was glad that my acting skills were improving. "Would you like to take someone, a friend or something?" I saw Edward's lips curl up very slightly at the edges at this question.

"No, no, I know some people going already so....It'll be cool." Ness started to head off to her room; I noticed the telephone was in her hand.

Alice was looking at Edward in a way I recognised when she said "It would be better if we hunted tonight then, so as we can enjoy tomorrow night. Are you coming Ness?"

"No, I've got things to do this evening, but you all go, I don't need babysitting." Ness finished this sentence as she reached the top of the stairs, and was gone.

"Shall we go everyone?" Alice looked around at us all, the smile in her voice not making an appearance on her lips

"Yes, let's." Edward pulled me out of the door, and the rest of the family followed behind.

We raced through the forest, Edward leading the way, until we reached a large clearing with a river running through it. There were tall trees on all sides of us, but the floor of the clearing was solid stone, with rough outcroppings which led to the water. We arranged ourselves in a loose circle. I kept my eyes on the ground, I hadn't yet managed to look Emmett in the face; I couldn't bear to see the burgundy I knew was in his eyes.

"How much have you heard Carlisle?" Edward spoke first; I looked up needing to see his face.

"Very little, Ness has been in the house ever since I got home and it's impossible to speak without her hearing."

Edward recounted the afternoon's events to us all, beginning with Alice's vision and ending with the setting up of the woman's house to look as if she had died there. They had left the house looking as if she had disturbed an intruder on her arrival home, a burglary gone wrong. Throughout Carlisle looked disturbed, he viewed all life as precious so the taking of a life by a member of his family was particularly painful for him.

"I am certain that no evidence of her ever being inside the garage will be found." Alice had cleaned up anything which could possibly be found by the police. At some point it was still likely we would be subject to some kind of investigation, as her car would have been seen outside and leaving the shop.

"Do you foresee any problems for us Alice, should we leave?" As Carlisle spoke we all turned to her expectantly.

"I don't think so, it's difficult to be sure, there are too many people involved and not everything is certain yet." She was still searching and looked frustrated by the lack of clarity in her vision.

Emmett had not spoken yet, his eyes stayed fixed on the ground as he said. "I'm sorry. I've put you all in danger." His natural exuberance was absent as he spoke.

Esme spoke softly to him, "Tell us about it Emmett."He seemed to be relieved by her request.

He paused for a moment before taking a deep breath. "She just walked in off the street, I think she'd just been in some kind of accident as she wanted me to have a look at her car." I remembered the broken lights on the back of the red Ford as he continued. "She looked like she had been hit in the face, and she was bleeding. She just smelled so good....."

"I know." Edward reassured him, I knew he would have seen and felt whatever Emmett had experienced through his memories.

"I was going to hold my breath and make a run for it, but she was blocking the doorway and I knew I wouldn't be able to run past her. I tried to resist for a minute, but it was hard trying to talk without breathing. In the end I just couldn't help myself."He shrugged his shoulders and there were nods from some of the others.

I was shocked by the fact Emmett only seemed concerned for the danger he had put us in, rather than the murder of an innocent woman.

"Wait a minute, I don't understand," Alice turned to look at Edward quizzically. "Why didn't you see my vision, or hear me call for you? We were so close..."

"The school is very big Alice, and I was talking with Bella so I was distracted, I try _not_ to listen to you most of the time, remember?" He half-smiled at her, which turned into a grimace. To the others I'm sure it looked like regret for missing Alice's vision, but I knew better; I knew he was blaming himself for Emmett's lapse, for not getting there in time to stop him.

Alice was still frowning at Edward, so I decided to change the subject. "What do we do now?"

I was surprised when Edward answered me instead of Carlisle. "We must carry on as normal, but at the same time we must watch what happens carefully and be ready to drop everything and go, if it comes to it."

"Emmett and I will do that." Rosalie spoke for the first time. "We are the ones most likely to fall under suspicion. There's no point in all of you becoming any more involved unless it's necessary."

"Watch the woman's house; listen to the police and anyone else who may come, look for any signs of suspicion. I will keep out of it for the most part, but I will have to come and listen to the thoughts of the police at some point, just to be certain." Edward looked around the clearing at each of us. "The main thing is to carry on as normal in public and also at home for Ness. We don't want her to know or suspect anything about this; she's too young to have to handle it."

At this I remembered our conversation with Ness this evening. "You can't seriously expect us to go to this party tomorrow night can you? It's so... so..... Inappropriate." I tried to keep my voice calm, but inside I was furious. How could everyone's only concerns be with covering this up? No one but Carlisle seemed to feel an ounce of sorrow for the woman whose life had been so brutally ended today.

"Bella." Jasper spoke and I knew he would be feeling my inner turmoil. "You have to understand, this is not the first time this has happened, most of us have taken lives, some of us many times over. We have all already dealt with the fact that sometimes, these things happen."

"These things happen?" I repeated his words to myself, I was aware of Edward's eyes on me and part of me reminded myself that every hurt I suffered over this would cut him far deeper, but I was beyond even protecting him at this point. My mind was spinning; I couldn't get over the callousness of Jasper's words, the callousness of our actions today. I looked around at my family and suddenly saw them, us, for what we were; Monsters.

I whirled around and ran into the forest. I ran as fast as I could, pushing myself to go faster than I ever had before. I had to escape my family, the guilt of what we had done this afternoon and most of all the monstrous life that was now mine. All of my former happiness was forgotten as horror and anger overwhelmed me.

I ran for what felt like days, but it could only have been hours as it was still dark by the time I slowed and stopped. I had not been aware of anyone following me as I ran, but now I could sense them slowing as I did. I had known he'd be there, but I didn't want to face him.

"Bella? It's alright." Edward appeared a few feet in front of me with his hands raised to calm me as if I were a crazed newborn again. We were no longer in the Forest, I had raced deep into the Rocky Mountains and I noticed the air was thinner.

"Alright?" I spat the word at him. "What in the world is alright about this Edward?" I lashed out at him in my anger, "How long until it's my mistake we're clearing up? Or Renesme's? Or _yours_?"I saw him wince at my words. I didn't want to cause him more pain but I couldn't hold it in.

"You _are_ my mistake Bella." He turned from me and crouched down to the ground. He raked his hands through his hair and pulled at it as if he were trying to rip it out. "I saw it Bella, I saw the moment you finally understood." He spoke unevenly and he seemed to struggle to catch his breath. "I have waited for the running and screaming for so long I had deluded myself into believing it would never come. I'm sorry... Please.......Please........." He sucked in a breath which hitched in his throat.

My shock at his words brought me to my senses, and my fury began to drain away. I gaped at him wondering how on earth the only thing that was _right _in the world at the moment could think I was a mistake.

"I should have left you the day I first saw you and never gone back. I was selfish, I wanted you and I took you. Taking you is truly the worst thing I have ever done." He slowly rose before me; his eyes were burning with self loathing. "I have even allowed myself to believe it was the right thing, that you were happy and that maybe this was our destiny."

The anguish he was suffering tore at my heart, but I didn't know how to stop it. He knew beyond doubt how I felt about what I was, and for that he blamed himself. I somehow had to make him understand that I would do the same again a thousand times if I had to, for him. "I regret nothing!" My voice was fierce with emotion; I begged him with my eyes to believe that whatever happened, _whatever _we went through, it was worth it for him.

He studied me for a moment before he closed his eyes; his mouth was pulled straight and tight. "I know." He replied sadly, "Neither do I." Guilt was etched into his face.

"You _are_ my destiny." I whispered, afraid now. I had never before considered that there could be anything that could tear us apart.

"I ripped you from your destiny and I made you a monster." His voice turned a snarl as he spat the words at me.

"No, Edward..." I was still afraid, and I began to fight for him. I knew his tendency to overreact, and in my mind's eye I suddenly saw him standing under that clock tower so long ago.

"I think if you deny it Bella I will truly go mad."

I realised that there was no way he would allow me to tell him how I was feeling, to make him understand. I was hanging onto my own sanity by my fingernails; my one safe harbour was him. If he pushed me away now we would tumble together into a black pit of despair, from which I didn't think we would ever escape. He was so determined to torture himself over me once again that he had failed to see how much I _needed _him right now.

Desperately I wrapped him into my shield and relived every ounce of horror I had suffered that afternoon. My understanding of what I truly was, and my fear of it. My disgust at my thirst, and my longing to taste the woman's blood in the shop. My recognition that I was a monster, that he was a monster. My fear that I would never be able to look Emmett, my most loved brother, in the face again.

I watched his face as he listened to me. It was like watching a man being burned at the stake, and I showed him my agony over his suffering at my hands. Finally I showed him my one ray of hope, my reason for existing, which was him. Our love, our life, our daughter. I showed him every ounce of darkness I had felt today, and that I would make the same choice again and again for him.

Eventually he took an uncertain step towards me, I started towards him and in an instant we had our arms around each other. I could feel the tension rolling off him in waves, and when I pulled away from him to look into his eyes there was misery there.

He was still wrapped deeply into my shield and bombarded him with my love, my utter faith and trust in him. I let down every restraint I could find, I tried to overwhelm him with the sheer strength of my emotions, anything to take away the self loathing which filled him.

We kissed, passion giving way to the utter need to be close to each other. I held him to me in a death grip, I felt like my heart would break knowing I had caused him this pain. I continued my inner tirade, using my vampire memory to remember every joy he had brought me, everything that made me certain what an utterly _good _man he was.

Finally he pulled away from me, but then he surprised me when he spoke. "Bella, please stop, you're making me dizzy."

"Vampires don't get dizzy." I smiled at him, but I pulled my shield away anyway, uncertain.

"No. That's what's so disconcerting Love." He managed a confused smile. "Your mind is becoming so strong, you were trying to overwhelm me, and you did. Totally."

I felt his mood shift under me and I was relieved. The only thing I could not suffer was his pain.

"It seems I have even more to apologise for Love."

"Edward, everything has been my choice, you are my choice. There is nothing for you to apologise for." I searched for the words I needed for him to hear. "I was arrogant; I thought I could have all of the good things without paying a price for them. I've denied what I am for so long that being confronted with it today was – horrifying. I'm sorry I took it so badly"

"Don't be Love, never be sorry about being honest with me, it is all I truly need from you." He looked into my eyes and brushed the hair out of my face, I hated to think what a mess I must be after running through the forest like a madwoman for hours. "Is it me, or does being who we are seem to be that much harder since we moved here?" He looked wistful and I imagined he was thinking back to how much happier life had been in Forks.

"Not who we are Edward, what we are." I corrected him softly.

"What do you mean?" He didn't seem to understand my distinction.

"Edward and Bella are still Edward and Bella, that won't ever change. Being vampires is what has been harder here; having to start again, pretending to be people we're not, and now this afternoon."

"Bella, we _are_ vampires." He still didn't seem to understand what I was trying to say, but I was determined to make him.

"No Edward," I put my hands on either side of his face and locked my eyes with his. "You are Edward Anthony Masen. Something happened to you once to change you into a vampire physically, but that doesn't make you any less Edward Anthony Masen. You are the person I am in love with; the vampire part is just a mask we both wear. It's the vampire part of us that causes all the problems, but that doesn't have to define us." I spoke to him softly, and looking in his eyes I had a sudden longing for them to be green. In a brief second I imagined what our lives would have been like if he had been human when we met, and it was beautiful.

He was watching me while I spoke, and I didn't quite understand the way he was looking at me, it was almost wonder, but then I saw a shadow cross his face again.

"You can't blame yourself for this afternoon, Edward."

I had caught him off guard and he struggled with what to say for a moment. "It was so close Bella, a minute earlier and we would have been in time to save her. If I had heard Alice...."

"Then if you need to blame anyone, blame me. I was the one who talked you into letting me shield you at school. I like the fact I can. I like the fact I can make this place a little bit easier for you. I didn't really think you were of any danger to anyone."

"I know. I like it too. I like being able to hear all the little thoughts you are only half aware of yourself, it..." He hesitated and smiled the first real smile I had seen from him since everything had changed so suddenly. "It makes me happy."

We stood quietly together for a few minutes. Alone in this place everything was alright again in the world, but I knew soon we would have to return home for Ness's sake.

"Do you forgive me Bella?" He whispered the question quietly in my ear, he sounded thoughtful.

I started to tell him again that there was nothing to forgive, and then stopped. Maybe this was what we both needed to hear. Although much had been made of the fact that I had chosen to become a vampire, in reality I had had little more choice than Edward. His was a choice between this and death, and Carlisle had chosen this for him. Mine had been a choice between becoming a vampire and being without Edward, and that was no more a choice than his had been. It had quickly become obvious that I would not survive long with him while human, and the prospect of life without him had been worse than death. I could not have survived it any more than he would have survived the Spanish Influenza which was killing him when Carlisle found him. "I forgive you Edward."

"Thank you." He sounded genuinely relieved. I realised that tonight I had begun to understand Edward better. He was, after all, many years older than me, and had had decades to understand every nuance of what we were, and the complex emotions that had time to develop while you were immortal.

I looked into his eyes and said, "I love you Edward."

He smiled his crooked smile that made me melt and said "I should hope so, I just ran halfway across the country for you."

I smiled back in relief, I was coming to terms with today's events quickly, safe in his arms, and I could sense his mood improving as mine did.

I looked around myself, paying attention to something other than us for the first time since I had stopped. We were in the mountains. There was snow on the ground, and the view I had so far failed to even recognise was absolutely breathtaking. "Where are we Edward, I hardly even remember running, let alone where I was going."

"We're back in the United States, Montana I think. It's going to be a long run home!" He raised his eyebrows at me and I laughed. It felt good.

"We should go, it's almost morning." The sky was turning pink and dawn was almost upon us.

"Let's hunt here first Love, Alice was right, if we want to enjoy tonight it will be easier if we're not thirsty."

Hand in hand we ran, first to hunt then for home. Everything had changed, but I was amazed to find that the only thing that really mattered had only gotten better.

**A/N – I am aware I'm torturing Edward a bit at the moment, but it will be worth it in the end! Please leave me a review, there are quite a few of you reading this and I would love to know how you're finding it! Thanks.**

**Ria**


	10. Alice

**Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight!**

It was late morning by the time we got home. Only Alice and Ness were in the house, and my heart sank when I realised that much of today would be taken up in playing dress up for the charity ball this evening.

Before we had even reached the door Ness was there waiting for me. "Mom, come on, Alice wants to try on some dresses for this evening, and we have to start getting ready and everything!"

Ness had been the subject (or victim) of Alice's most extreme fashionista tendencies ever since she was born, but unlike me she loved every minute of it. I had hoped that this would lead Alice to forget about me a little bit, but she still viewed me as her pet project and instead our beautifying sessions had simply expanded to include Ness as she had grown older. My own fashion sense had improved under Alice's constant guidance (or haranguing), but I was still of the kind who would prefer to start getting ready about half an hour before I wanted to go out.

"I'll be there in two minutes Ness, I promise!" I could see her start to protest, but then she rolled her eyes in impatience and went back inside.

"Go, have fun, between Ness and Alice I don't expect to see you again until this evening!" Edward laughed; his relief at my improved mood palpable.

"Oh noooo," I whined "Please come and rescue me in a bit, I can't sit there all day, I'll die of boredom!"

"I'm not sure if I dare risk the wrath of both my sister and daughter." He was grinning, "Anyway, I'm sure Alive won't keep you there all day! I'll be back later." He pecked me on the lips then was off, I assumed to Emmett and Rosalie's place. I let myself gloss over the thoughts that fact raised in my mind as I walked into the house with my shoulders slumped.

Our wardrobes were such that there was no need to go on a special shopping trip for tonight's event; we sorted through Alice's enormous walk in closet to find some suitable outfits to try on. We chose for Ness first, as she was the one gaining most pleasure out of this process. Once she had tried on everything Alice had to offer she came back to the dress she had pulled out first. I found myself grinding my teeth in frustration as she tried it on again and declared it to be perfect.

It was actually a very pretty dress, and I could see that Alice had bought it for Ness alone. It was a dark shade of green in a rich satin. It was cut beautifully, it was modest and not too revealing, but at the same time feminine with an elegant hemline that scooped downwards almost into a train. I found that when I saw her in it I could see the woman that she would be in such a short time. I felt a little misty at that thought, I was glad I couldn't cry as that would have made her roll her eyes at me again.

"You look beautiful Ness, so grown up!" My voice sounded a little unsteady, and I saw she had caught me.

"Mom! Urgh, don't cry!" As expected she rolled her eyes at me, but she smiled and ran over and put her arms around me in a hug.

"Most Moms get a few more years to get used to their kids growing up to look like this; strictly speaking you should still be not much more than a baby. Give me a break." I was smiling too. Mother daughter moments had seemed in short supply recently, but in the last week Ness had reverted to the wonderful, happy child she had been up until a few months before we had moved. I wondered how much of her terrible moodiness had been hormones, and how much had been the need to move away from Forks.

"Let's get you out of this before it gets all wrinkled before this evening." Alice pulled us apart cheerfully and helped Ness out of her gown, before passing her some sweats to put on which I recognised meant we were getting ready for some serious preening next.

As Ness finished making herself decent again the phone began to ring and she jumped up in the air as if she had been hit by a bolt of lightning. "I'll get it!" she yelled as she hurtled from the room at top speed.

Alice and I stood patiently for a few moments, until I said "I don't think she's coming back anytime soon Alice." I looked at her and she shook her head sadly, her bottom lip slipping out in disappointment.

Suddenly she smiled at me "Never mind Bella, let's find something for you!" She rushed to her wardrobe and pulled out a mountain of dresses, rushing back again only to return with far too many shoes.

Now I felt like rolling my eyes, but I never seemed to be able to carry the expression off with the lazy condescension of my husband or daughter.

I was surprised when Alice, rather than immediately starting to force a dress on me, came and stood next to me and put her arm around me "How are you Bella?" She looked up at me with gentle eyes.

"I'm fine Alice." I came up with my stock response, but I could see she wasn't going to allow me to leave it at that.

She paused for a moment before she said "You'll destroy him if you leave, you know that don't you?"

I froze, horrified. I listened carefully and couldn't hear anyone else in the house to hear our conversation, apart from Ness who sounded far too engrossed in her telephone call to be paying us any attention. "I'm not leaving Alice, why would you say that?"

"I saw it last night, the instant you ran. I've seen a couple of flickers of it since as well." She looked at me meaningfully. "I'm watching you."

"Did Edward see it?" My heart was sinking at the thought.

"I'm pretty sure he did, the last thing I saw in his face before he turned to follow you was a look of utter panic." She broke off for a minute, remembering, then continued in a hushed whisper "It frightened me, the vision. I think Jasper nearly had an embolism." She raised her eyebrows at me while I absorbed the implications of what she had said.

"I don't remember ever intending to leave him. I couldn't. How would I live without him?"

Alice seemed to relax a little; I wondered what she had actually seen in her vision.

"What would he do if I left Alice?" I wasn't sure if I really wanted to know the answer to my question.

"You and I know better than anyone Edward's tendency to overreact Bella." She said so quietly that even I wasn't sure I'd heard her correctly.

I pulled away from her and went and sat down on her bed. I put my head in my hands and tried to breathe calmly, I knew that I couldn't physically be having a panic attack, but mentally I was doing a pretty good job of it. "Is he ok Alice?"

"I can't see anything to the contrary at the moment, I'm sorry; I'm not trying to upset you." She had joined me on the bed and put her arm around me again.

"I'm honestly not going anywhere. It was just.....last night.......on top of everything......Jasper freaked me out." I took a deep breath. "These things happen". I used my most sarcastic tone to highlight my disgust at his comment.

"I know. He feels bad about that, he's not quite right though."

"No?"

"That's how he feels, but you have to remember how he spent the first century of his life Bella. He has a conscience, but he feels that we have numbers on our side and that the odd slip up is inevitable." Alice was defending her husband, but I didn't want her to feel she had to, for me.

"I know Alice. I don't blame him for that. I think that's how Edward feels too."

"You know that's not true Bella." Alice said reprovingly.

"I do?"

"He argues the point that we slip up sometimes, but you know that he never has. He is defending Emmett when he says that, Edward didn't even slip the day he met you, and I don't think any of the rest of us have ever had temptation thrown in our faces quite as blatantly as that."

We were both silent for a few minutes before I said "I feel so guilty Alice, like it was me who killed her."

"I know Bella, so do I."

I looked up at her, "What?"

"If I had seen him sooner we could have got there in time, we were so close." She closed her eyes and sighed with sorrow.

"No Alice, don't you see, I was shielding Edward, it was my fault he didn't hear you."

"I know."

"You know?"

She looked back up at me again suddenly, I waited for her fury to rain down on me, I deserved it. Instead she grinned a wicked grin. "I knew it, I knew you were trying to take the blame because of that! Oh Bella, you mustn't."

Now it was my turn to be confused. "What?"

"Neither of us can shoulder the blame for this, we shouldn't try to. Blamestorming never helped anyone!" She smiled again, clearly impressed with her use of the term. "I know Jasper's assessment is hard, but we do all take risks every day being exposed to humans, the only way for us to be completely sure no one ever gets hurt is to go and live like hermits somewhere."

"So you want me to just accept that every now and then I might just kill someone by mistake?" I could feel heat rising to my face, I was glad I could no longer cry the angry tears that previously would have betrayed me.

"Have you done so, so far?"

"No!" I was made even angrier by her question, she knew I hadn't!

"Then what makes you think you will now, just because Emmett slipped, _again_?"

"I-" I didn't know what to say, I felt certain I wouldn't be able to hurt anyone, but hadn't yesterday just proven I was lying to myself? "I don't think I will."

"There's no reason to believe you will. Carlisle has never taken a human life, Rosalie has never tasted human blood, nor has Esme. Edward has never slipped when trying not to hunt humans, and he's never killed a _good _person."

She was speaking quickly now, and I felt my heart lift. She was right, there was no reason to believe I would ever make the same mistake as Emmett.

She continued to reassure me "I have also never killed a human."

I didn't know this, I knew very little about Alice's life before she met Jasper and joined with the rest of the family.

"You haven't, even though you woke up alone with no one to help you?"

"I woke up and saw Carlisle, I never tried any other way." She shrugged her shoulders "Even Jasper hasn't killed anyone in decades."

I thought about what she was saying for a few moments, I realised that the only one of us who actually did slip, and had done several times now, was Emmett.

"Emmett is more childlike than any of us, he is more accepting of what we are and....." She paused, weighing up how I would take her next words "we love him."

I wondered how I would feel if I couldn't ever look at my favourite brother in the same way again, and realised that I would be sorry. "Yes, I love him too."

"Edward is an idiot to keep telling you that sometimes we slip, sometimes _Emmett _slips, and we forgive him and deal with it. I don't believe we will ever be having this conversation about you Bella."

I smiled at Alice and wrapped both my arms around her in a tight hug. "What would I ever do without you?" She had known exactly what I had needed to hear, and I loved her so much for it right now.

"I don't know, between you and Edward you would find some reason to bury yourselves in angst I'm sure! Now, to the matter at hand, which one do you want to try on first?" Alice stood and began sorting through the mountain of designer dresses before us. I didn't have the heart to disappoint her; I prepared myself for a very long afternoon.

**A/N – Please review! The next chapter is already written, I'm sure I'll get it edited much quicker if I think someone wants to read it! It contains our leading man at his most beautiful, you know you want him.... PS - sorry for the delay in getting this chapter out, I've been trying to upload it since Friday but something went a little wonky somewhere along the lines!**


	11. Jubilee

The Jubilee Ball was being held in central Calgary in a grand 1920s style hotel, it was Art Deco in design and all of the features on the outside of the building were very square. The brightly lit windows were tall, with sunburst designs in the glass, and the floor of the covered entrance to the building had a detailed mosaic pattern of black and white square tiles covering it.

When we arrived both the hotel and the street outside were heaving with people, I searched for anybody I recognised, but the crowd was too big and I relished the privacy it afforded us. The noise of voices and laughter was incredible in the grand entrance hall. The wide circular room had a long stretch of marble reception desks to one side, and on the other was a wide sweeping staircase, the stairs were again made of marble with black wrought iron banisters running up the sides and middle. The overall impression was of walking straight into an Agatha Christie novel, which had always called up to me visions of such 1920s elegance.

The main feature of the entrance hall was a splendid black clock, dangling from a chain in the centre of the ceiling. It was square with 4 faces, almost like one you might expect to see in a railway station in an old movie. Beneath this was an enormous clear plastic box stuffed full of cash, obviously to encourage additional donations from generous patrons during tonight's events. As we passed it Edward casually added several hundred dollars to its total. The ball was foremost a charity event, marking the Golden Jubilee of the formation of the charitable foundation organising it, I had little interest in their endeavours, other than the magic they had worked this evening.

Edward and I had travelled separately to the rest of the family in his Alfa. I had still been unsure about attending this evening when we had got in the car together to leave, but by the time we had left Wendle behind I was already relaxing, and when we reached Calgary I was glad we had come. My conversation with Alice had done wonders for my frame of mind, and I had decided to go and find Emmett this evening.

It was wonderful having Edward to myself for once, and I held onto him tightly as he led me through the melee to the main ballroom. He looked magnificent in his black tuxedo, the way it contrasted against his white skin intensified his beauty and I couldn't bear to tear my eyes away from him. I was delighted to find that in the privacy of the crowd of strangers I felt like Mrs Cullen again, leaving Bella Swan back in Wendle.

I searched around the room for the rest of our family, but I still couldn't see any of them. Edward could see my concern, but simply smiled at me as he led me straight onto the dance floor and pulled me into his arms.

"God, I've been looking forward to this all day," He held me tightly to him as we twirled effortlessly around the dance floor. "You look utterly ravishing tonight Bella."

I had to admit I looked pretty good this evening, Alice had chosen me a beautiful cream gown, embroidered in gold thread with hundreds of tiny flowers. The shoulder straps were narrow, but elegantly cut, falling away to a dramatic neckline. I thanked God for the power of double sided tape, which was all that was currently sparing me from absolute mortification. When Ness had eventually returned from her mammoth telephone call, rather too pink and excited for my liking, she had insisted on being allowed to do my hair and makeup somewhat differently to how Alice usually did it. Rather than the curls which usually graced my hair, she styled in ramrod straight, flattening it into submission with blow dryers and staighteners until it looked like liquid glass running over my shoulders. She drew dramatic thick eyeliner around my eyes, which to my surprise made me look mysterious, almost like a modern Cleopatra. Altogether the combination made me look older and more sophisticated than I had ever imagined myself. I had taken it as a compliment when it had taken Edward a full minute after he first saw me to manage to stutter out how nice I looked.

When we first entered the room I had been instantly aware of the eyes on us, both male and female, and knew tonight we were not doing a good job of remaining low profile.

I only managed a little murmur of contentment in reply. I had spent the afternoon with Alice waiting to be with Edward, to touch him and to check he was ok. In the end I had almost driven myself mad with worry about him, cursing myself for the pain I had caused him in reaction to something that had not been either of our faults. The contrast between that and the utter contentment and comfort I felt being with him now was ridiculous, and I smiled to myself for being so melodramatic.

"What are you thinking Love?"

We had agreed that I would not shield Edward this evening as him being blind as it were, especially with Ness present, could pose a risk to us. Neither of us had deigned to mention yesterday's events, we didn't need to.

However now I pulled him in and showed him my thoughts which had made me smile. I showed him my conversation with Alice this afternoon in its entirety; I had never lied to Edward, and did not plan on starting now. I showed him my misery this afternoon waiting for him, how long it had been to me, and finally I showed him how happy I was right now in his arms. I was finding the more I pulled Edward into my shield the more I could feel him, almost physically in my mind. I showed him how he felt to me now and how much I liked it, his presence was a warm glow to me and I treasured it.

"It's ok Love, don't worry, I'm fine." He pulled away a little so our eyes could meet.

_Are you sure? I was worried, Alice was worried, she's very sensitive about giving you false information about me these days you know. _Last time it had almost cost us our lives, so I was glad she was being a little more cautious this time around.

"Yes, I saw it, but I know you. I _trust_ you. These days if it's a bet between you and Alice, you win hands down, every time." He was smiling and looked so relaxed I couldn't do anything but believe him.

I leant up and kissed him as I extricated him from my shield again, I would miss him in my head, but we had agreed.

We continued to dance; swirling more gracefully than I could have ever imagined I would be able to before I was a vampire. However I noticed the floor was gradually beginning to clear and I realised that the other dancers might be becoming intimidated by our prowess. I slowed my step into something more natural, urging Edward to do the same to spare the human egos from too much bruising.

"Do you know what my favourite thing about dancing is Bella?" He spoke seductively into my ear, his cool breath making my neck tingle. He didn't pause for me to answer. "Despite being in a room full of people, we are completely and utterly alone." He softly kissed my throat as we continued to dance.

My face was nestled into his chest and I made a little hum of agreement. My stomach was full of butterflies and if my heart had been able it would have stuttered at his touch. The atmosphere between us was electric this evening, and feeling the entire length of his body against me while in such a public place left me feeling breathless. Our lips met for a moment before he twirled me around away from him. Almost immediately he was pulling me back into his body with a laugh. "Tease." I said in a whisper.

"We are in public Bella, there is such a thing as too much attention you know." He scolded me though his eyes were full of laughter.

Over his shoulder I suddenly spotted Ness across the room. She had come with Carlisle and Esme, which had seemed appropriate as they were supposed to be her parents to anyone we knew here. They were close by her, involved in a conversation with a large group of people. I assumed they were from the hospital, Edward had mentioned that most of the people at this event were the "highfliers" of the city and that many of Carlisle's colleagues were going to be here.

Ness was where my focus was at this moment though. She was in the arms of a boy of about 15, who was gazing at her adoringly as they danced, somewhat haltingly. He was a little taller than her with blond hair and blue eyes. His build belied his age, and he could have passed for much older to someone without vampire senses to ascertain the truth. Most importantly though; Ness looked _happy. S_he was gazing into the eyes of this boy with the unmistakeable look of a teenager under the thrall of first love. My stomach lurched at this thought; little did the boy she was dancing with know that she was in fact only 5 years old.

Edward caught my stare and followed my eyes. "And there he is, I must say I don't know what she sees in him." He was frowning slightly in Ness's direction.

"You knew about this?" As we spoke we had worked our way to the side of the room, to allow us to watch more closely without being observed.

"I suspected. She's been guarding her thoughts for the last few days, I'd figured it couldn't be much else other than a boy." Edward's expression was a picture, I knew he must be struggling as any father does to see their little girl with their first boyfriend, but he had the same problem as me having had only five years to get used to the idea.

"Can you hear his thoughts from here?" I hoped he wasn't thinking anything inappropriate about Ness, for his sake.

"Yes I can, they're full of Renesmee. He thinks she's magnificent." He seemed to relax a little, I hoped that meant he hadn't heard anything to the boy's detriment.

"Poor Jake." I couldn't help myself, seeing Ness dancing with someone else reminded me of my friend, and how much he would be hurt to see her right now. We hadn't heard from Jacob since the move, I had figured he was allowing Ness her freedom and hoping she would come back to him in her own time.

Edward shrugged "Jacob's heart is no longer your concern, Bella."

It was harsh, but true. As Ness had grown my friendship with Jake had gradually been transferred to her, my feelings towards Jacob were now more motherly than anything else. I looked back with irony at my initial horror at being his "mother-in-law", realising that that was what I had been expecting to become up until a few months ago. Maybe I still would be, Ness was still figuring herself out, and something inside me told me that Jacob would still figure in the answer, when she worked out what that was.

Edward was watching me. His eyes seemed a little unsure for a moment, until I took his hand and we began to make our way back to the dance floor. Suddenly Alice and Jasper materialised in front of us.

"Bella, isn't it beautiful?" Alice also looked stunning this evening. She was wearing a tight fitting deep purple crushed silk dress, it finished at her knees and with it she wore black knee length boots. The effect was rather more gothic than was her usual style, another change guided by my daughter, but it suited her. I wondered vaguely if Ness was beginning to rival Alice in the style stakes.

"Yes Alice, have you seen Ness?" I glanced over to where she was still dancing with her new friend.

"Of course, I've been waiting for him to come along." She winked at me.

"You saw this and didn't tell me?" I was exasperated, between my sister and my husband I should really be getting some advanced warning on things like this, so why did I always feel left in the dark?

"You know most things are best left to happen as intended Bella, you wouldn't have wanted me to spoil her fun now would you...." There was no arguing with her, I cursed my shield, wishing I had some better super power to make me a bit more aware of what was going on around me.

I caught Jasper watching me smiling, and I smiled back. He and I shared a common annoyance, both having spouses who were always a step or two ahead of us due to their abilities, and he was amused by my frustration.

"Have you seen Emmett and Rosalie, I haven't spotted them yet?" I was looking around the room, even in such a crowd it should be possible to spot Emmet, especially as Rosalie wouldn't be able to help herself from showing off on the dance floor.

Before Alice had a chance to answer Edward grabbed my hand and started to pull me towards the dance floor again. "I'm sure they'll be here soon Bella. Come on, I liked it better when I had you to myself."

I only just had time to give Alice a quick wave before she was gone.

The music had changed tempo to a slow waltz, and Edward and I danced as close to each other as courtesy would allow. I felt like I was in heaven in his arms and I considered the fact that my life seemed to have switched back to fairytale again in such a short space of time. The evening had a magical feel about it and, as I swirled and twirled around the room with him, all I could think about was how much I adored this wonderful man.

"What are you thinking about now Love?" His voice was a little huskier than usual.

"I'm thinking about how much I miss my wedding rings." I looked up at my empty ring hand on his shoulder. I missed the beautiful diamond engagement ring that had once belonged to Edward's mother, and now belonged to me. I missed the way it caught the light and the weight of it on my hand. My hand felt empty without the precious symbol I had worn for five years, and had not expected to be without ever again. I knew where it was of course, tucked away safely in a safety deposit box in Seattle, along with mine and Edward's wedding rings. Neither of us had wanted to take any risks with them and had come to an unspoken agreement that these, our most priceless possessions from our real lives in Forks, would be put away where no unexpected accident or loss could befall them while we could not wear them.

He looked down at his own naked hand and said "You could wear your engagement ring; I think we could get away with claiming to be engaged at seventeen." He smiled shyly at me and I could see that he would rather like that.

"Would I get another proposal?" I giggled as he suddenly twirled me around before catching me back in his arms.

"If you would like, but where......hmmm." He pursed his lips together in faux concentration. "Paris maybe? Or Venice?"

I scowled at him and he quickly backtracked.

"Maybe not Italy..... Vienna? Vienna is beautiful in the winter, or London?" His smile was unrestrained now "Somewhere special this time, somewhere beautiful."

"But you already know the answer, where's the fun in that?" I was teasing him; I could entirely see the fun in that.

"Bella, it will be _so much_ fun now I know the answer, I can assure you." He ran his nose down my cheek to my jaw and kissed his way to my ear lobe. "I would love to take you to Europe, we could spend a few months travelling around, start in London, move on to Paris, Barcelona, Bruges, Vienna."

"Have you been to all of those places?" We had not really travelled in the last 5 years because of Ness, and we had not ventured outside of the continental US since our honeymoon. My only European jaunt remained our brief but memorable trip to Volterra.

"Some of them, but it doesn't matter. I've never been there with you, so it's like I've never even seen them at all." He spoke softly and I imagined how wonderful it would be to see the world with him.

"What about school?" He was punctuating our conversation with kisses under my jaw and, although I was playing coy, I would have followed him anywhere right then, forgetting school in a flash.

"I've been thinking about that." He stopped kissing me and met my gaze again.

"What about it?"

"Let's drop it and go. Soon. We could spend a year or two in Europe, the come back and try out the living as grown-ups theory." His eyes sparkled with excitement at his plan and I could feel his breathing pick up waiting for my response.

I was in danger of being swept away by his enthusiasm, so I stopped to think about this idea for a moment. Calgary clearly wasn't working out for us. Both Edward and I had spent too long living separately from the rest of the family to go back to the routine of playing at being High School kids again, and to be honest I was already missing my own home. Living with Carlisle and Esme again was lovely, but I felt like a house guest.

"What would we do about Ness?" She was clearly revelling in her new life in Wendle, and I would've been sorry to do anything to disrupt that.

"She needs to stay here and go to High School, and to be honest I feel like I've shared you for long enough."

I raised my eyebrows in surprise at him, I knew he loved Ness as much as I did and I wasn't expecting his response.

"You know I can be a selfish bastard when it comes to you Bella." He laughed, "But I do think it would be good for her to stay here, we can come back and visit, and she can join us for holidays, think about how time in Europe would expand her education."

"When would we go?" I could feel excitement building inside me. The thought of having Edward to myself, for months or even years, in some of the most romantic places in the world was undeniably attractive.

"You want to?" His face was a picture, the delight lighting him up from the inside and I knew then that I would do anything that made him this happy without question.

"Definitely."

"Yes!" At this he picked me up and spun me around half a dozen times.

When he finally put me down and pulled me to him again we were both laughing uncontrollably, in both relief and excitement. I rephrased my question "When shall we go?"

"Well, we need to hang on for a few weeks, just to check everything's ok here." His face became wary for a moment and I knew he was trying to avoid talking about yesterday's events. "So, maybe we should go after Christmas, have the holidays here, or maybe go and spend some time with Charlie, then start in London in January."

"Wouldn't you miss Carlisle, the family?"

"I would, we would, but as I said, we can visit." He was grinning from ear to ear, and I did not doubt he was delighted by our new plan. "Anyway, I can't think of anything better than it just being the two of us for a while. Do you realise we never got any time as just newlyweds? They will be fine without us, they all will."

"I know they will." I wrapped my arms even tighter around my husband as we danced around the room. My mind was filled with all the places I wanted to see. I thought about the Louvre in Paris, the Tate in London, all of it made even more perfect by being there with him. His excitement was catching and I started to wonder what Christmas would be like in London.

I suddenly realised that Edward had danced us towards the end of the ballroom. He led me through a hugely ornate archway into a dining room laid out for dinner. A large buffet was being provided for guests, and most of the tables were filled with people eating and drinking. Standing to one side of the room I spotted Carlisle, Esme, Alice and Jasper, Edward led me over to join them.

"I thought you two were never leaving that dance floor!" Alice was holding a half full glass of wine and was smiling broadly at me. I vaguely wondered what she had done with the other half of the wine.

"We thought we'd give everybody else a chance for a while." Edward was still grinning, dazzling in his delight at our plans made this evening.

Alice continued to speak, but I was immediately distracted when I realised that Carlisle and Edward were having a surreptitious conversation. They were both working hard to conceal this fact from me, but I had immediately recognised the tiny signs that Edward was responding to unspoken words from his father.

I continued to speak to Alice, not betraying the fact that I knew they were attempting to deceive me. I knew this could only be about one thing, and I understood that Edward would want to protect me from whatever was happening for fear of my reaction.

"Shall we go and powder our noses Bella?" Alice cut into my train of thought.

"Sorry?"

"I need to fix your makeup, what has Edward been doing with you all night?" She began to drag me away, but I recognised this for what it was; a ploy to get me out of the way. Edward was leaving; most likely something was happening with Emmett and Rosalie.

I allowed Alice to lead me out into a corridor to the side of the dining room, it was quieter out here and we had room to walk easily without brushing past people all the time.

I followed Alice to the bathroom door, and then stopped as she pushed it open. "Oh shoot!" I said.

"Bella?"

"I forgot my bag, I checked it with my coat and it has my lipstick in it."

"You can use mine."Alice had paused at the door and tried to pull me in with her.

I deliberately made no decisions about my plans for after I left Alice. She didn't look concerned so I could only hope that she hadn't seen what I was about to do.

"No, it won't work with my dress, I'll just be a minute." I slipped away, purposefully deciding to go and get my bag.

As soon as I was out of her sight I changed direction and headed towards the exit, as fast as I could in such a crowded building. Once I was outside I slipped into the shadows and ran towards the Alfa. There was a chance he would have already beaten me to the car, but I suspected he would have given Alice a minute or two to get me into the bathroom before he made his own exit.

At full speed it was only seconds until I reached the Alfa and I was relieved to find I hadn't missed him. I settled myself into the passenger seat, and waited for Edward to arrive.

**A/N – I have never been to Calgary, although I have family there! The hotel I'm describing is actually one of my favourite buildings in London. **


	12. Together

Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight!

Less than a minute later Edward slipped into the driver's seat beside me; neither of us spoke as he started the engine and pulled away.

We drove slowly through the streets around the hotel. There were people milling everywhere and Edward was clearly immensely frustrated by the hold up. He looked straight ahead, not acknowledging my presence in the car even. I could see the muscles in his arms and shoulders were tensed and his face was stiff and angry. Eventually we turned onto the highway and were headed back to Wendle at top speed.

Finally he broke the silence "Dammit Bella, can't you take a hint, I don't know what I'm getting into here." He was gripping the steering wheel tightly and his face was a scowl.

"Not sure if you've noticed Edward: Vampire now." I softened my tone, I didn't want to fight with him "I go where you go, don't you already know that?"

I could see him struggle to find an answer for a moment, until he said "You don't need to be involved with this, it's an unnecessary risk."

"If you are involved, I am involved." I was doing my best not to get angry with him, but I would not be cosseted like a child. I felt fairly certain that we wouldn't be facing any danger where we were headed tonight, but nonetheless I wanted to be with him. I knew this would most likely be unpleasant, but there might be something I could do to help tonight, and if there was I was going to be there to do it.

"I don't want you to be upset"

"I am already upset, but I'm dealing with it. You are my blood Edward, I will not allow you to face this on your own". My voice was getting sharper as my temper ran away with me.

"I wish you would." His tone suddenly changed. He spoke very softly, his bottom lip tensed and he shot me a worried look.

"Why? Why can't I help you with this?" I felt rejected and angry, did he think I was so useless he had to protect me from myself at every turn? Then a thought struck me. I turned to him slowly and said in a very quiet voice. "I'm not going anywhere."

He shot another worried glance at me, and I realised I'd hit the nail on the head. "Alice saw you go Bella. I-" His voice broke and I felt a physical pain in my heart with it "I wouldn't deal with that very well."

"She saw it for an instant, when I was virtually out of my mind, it's gone now." I tried to hide the frustration in my voice. I reached over and put my hand on his thigh "You said you trusted me."

"I do." He sighed "It's just that the part of me that would die without you is screaming at me to turn the car around and take you back to Calgary."

"Edward, it's that same part in me which couldn't let you go alone this evening. Please, just let me come with you."

He looked at me and his face softened, he looked so vulnerable at that moment I was swept away by him. I didn't often think of Edward as being technically seventeen, but I caught a glimpse of the boy he had been for a second in his expression, and I felt a powerful surge of protectiveness towards him. I considered for a moment how strange that was; he was and had always been my protector in so many ways, but when it came to his heart I was his guardian as truly as he was mine.

We were already arriving at the outskirts of town; we had been travelling at an insane speed, even for him. "We're going back to Rosalie and Emmett's place, I need to change. So do you." He shot me an appreciative sideways glance "Don't let Alice throw out that dress though."

I didn't react, I had already guessed what was coming, but for a second I wished I _was_ back in Calgary.

"They have been watching the woman's house, she was discovered this morning." He paused and I squeezed his thigh, encouraging him to continue. "There are detectives at her house at the moment, I need to hear what they are thinking, and we have to be sure we don't miss anything. Rose and Emmett are there now."

"I understand, I'll come with you."

"You don't have to. It's not going to be...." He trailed off; he didn't have to say anything else.

"I want to. I can't let you do this on your own."

We pulled in outside the house. It was in darkness, but I realised I could hear Rosalie and Emmett inside. I wondered why they were back. I felt a little ball of worry form in the pit of my stomach; I hadn't spoken to Emmett since yesterday and I wasn't sure what I was going to say to him.

Edward leapt out of the car and hurried around to help me out. We made our way to the house at human speed, but once we were inside we flitted to our room and changed into jeans as fast as we could. I was glad I had dropped some clothes around a couple of days ago, as I stood out a little too much in my evening dress for covert operations. We had not been spending a lot of time here as Emmett and Rosalie had also had the same idea of using it as their love-nest, and in a smaller house that had proven awkward to say the least.

We went downstairs and found Emmett and Rosalie in the kitchen, they were speaking but their tone was subdued. They were sitting at the kitchen table, Emmett looked down as I walked in the room and did not look up again as Rosalie spoke.

"They left a few minutes ago, they said they were going to be back in about an hour. I thought we could fill you in on what's happened so far, before we go back."

"Carlisle said you were worried?" Edward said.

"They're very quiet, I don't like it, it's almost like they don't want to say something out loud" She grimaced as she continued "I just have this feeling something's not quite..... adding up for them. I don't know. Also one of them looks really........ sick maybe? Not happy anyway. I'm sorry we dragged you away from your evening Edward."

She glanced at me and I could see she didn't understand why I was there.

"I go where he goes Rosalie, you know that." I looked her steadily in the eye and after a moment she nodded.

"What happened Rosalie?" Edward sat down opposite her, I stayed standing as the only seat left was directly opposite Emmett.

"Her husband had been away on business, he didn't get in until three this afternoon when he found her. It all went a bit crazy for a bit, police and an ambulance, but then these two detectives turned up after an hour or so and everything calmed down a lot. They've been doing forensics and a doctor came and took a look at her."

"Is she gone?" Edward was focussing hard on Rosalie, not noticing the tension in the room.

"They took the body away about an hour ago, they've taken it back to the hospital for an autopsy. The doctor who looked at her did realise she had suffered a massive blood loss though. They debated where the blood went for a few minutes, then suddenly went quiet. I mean totally, they just stopped speaking to each other." Rosalie's face looked puzzled as she spoke, but I felt a growing sense of alarm at her words.

"Where have they gone now?" Edward almost whispered, he also seemed to be becoming worried by what Rosalie was saying.

"I don't know, they just upped and left, the only reason we know they're coming back is they told the guys who are still sweeping the scene for evidence.

"Why would they go quiet like that?" Edward pondered, his face uncertain. I was sure we were all brooding on the same fact; that they had gone quiet as soon as they realised the body had been completely drained of blood.

Several minutes went past and nobody spoke. Emmett continued to stare with great absorption at the kitchen table, Rosalie was by his side watching him. She looked as if she didn't know how to talk to him at the moment and I realised my presence was not helping matters.

I had never seen Rosalie looking like she did at that moment. I had seen her angry and resentful, but she had always been glorious in her fury. Tonight she looked deflated, her eyes were dull and her shoulders slumped. I went and sat down at the table next to Edward, I reached my hand over to my sister and rubbed her arm, trying to comfort her in some way.

I could see that Edward was still thinking about what we were going to find at the woman's house shortly, he was gazing into space, completely still.

The atmosphere between us all was tense, I was glad for Jasper that he was not there, as I'm sure he would have found it difficult. I decided I had to say something to Emmett. He looked miserable and it was true, I loved him too.

"Emmett." He didn't look up at me, in a way I was glad. "How are you doing?" I tried to keep my tone neutral.

"I'm ok Bella, I feel bad about everything though." I could see my judgement of him had made the situation so much worse. Emmett was essentially a good vampire; he embraced our lifestyle as much as the rest of us. I struggled with myself for a few moments, I did not want to sympathise with a murderer, despite the fact it was Emmett.

Fundamentally though, was it fair of me to condemn him so wholeheartedly for acting on his natural instincts this one time? I didn't like, but could understand, Jasper's view that there were numbers on our side. How many thousands of lives could Emmett have taken by now, if not for his daily battle against his true nature? To err is human....... I gave up trying to reason with myself. I realised I would have decades to mull this problem over, and at the moment my family was hurting.

"Emmett, look at me." After a pause he looked up. His eyes were a deep burgundy colour. They were shocking, but not nearly as bad as I had expected. The colour was much less dramatic than the bright red my newborn eyes had been. "Please don't feel you have to hide from me. You're still my brother, and I love you."

He half smiled at me "I love you too little sis." His smile turned into a grimace and he looked away from me again. "I'm sorry I disappointed you."

"You make me sound like I'm your mother!" I wasn't deliberately joking with him, but that was what it turned into, indignation colouring my voice at his reaction. It was just unavoidable with Emmett.

"Well, you are getting a bit Mumsy these days you know Bella, even to rival Esme." He looked back up at me, sporting an evil grin. It was nice to be able to kid around with him.

I harrumphed at him and tried to scowl, but it was difficult while he was teasing me.

He narrowed his eyes at me slightly. "I didn't realise you loved me Bells," he put on a false whisper "Maybe you're not that Mumsy after all......" He waggled his eyebrows and I felt the atmosphere in the room discernibly lighten.

Suddenly a large metal pepper pot zipped through the air directly at Emmett's head from Edward's direction. He knocked it to one side with his hand but didn't quite manage to catch it; instead it crashed into a kitchen cabinet with a crack where it left a large dent.

"Emmett!" Rosalie protested loudly as both Emmett and Edward cracked up.

As the laughter subsided we all looked around the table at each other. The awkwardness was gone, but it was replaced by sadness as I realised Emmett and Rosalie would most likely be leaving soon.

"What are you going to do?" Edward's voice was soft; I guessed this was something they had already been discussing today.

"We're not going to open the shop again; fortunately we haven't done any advertising or taken any new jobs on yet." Rosalie looked resigned, "I'm going to pull the money out of the account, it will look like we went bust before we even got started. It's not that unusual." She shrugged and bit her lip, her disappointment evident on her face.

I caught her eye and gave her a sympathetic smile, I shared her disappointment. She had been so excited about doing something _real _this time around, neither she nor Emmett had considered the possible danger of being exposed to an unfamiliar human alone and unwatched. The numerous witnesses usually around in a school or college made it even more important to maintain control and, to my personal great relief, this was sometimes enough to act as a last line of defence when control was about to be lost.

I was also looking at this from a rather selfish point of view as well. Ever since Edward and I had decided to try the living as grownups idea out for ourselves I had been planning our lives in my head. He could setup a new practice somewhere, if he claimed to be a newly qualified psychiatrist we could make that work for about two to three years, as we accepted that he couldn't really pass for anymore than 24 or 25 at a stretch. I still wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do longer term, but I thought for our first try I could work as his personal assistant, observing him. That would also have the advantage of being near him all day; I had really missed him while he had been working during our time in Forks. I had wondered if I could also look into working as a psychiatrist or a therapist, but I would need to go to college for that.

I accepted that this would mean moving more regularly than if we went to High School, and that we would not really be able to live with the family all of the time anymore. We would be able to visit though, and we would be able to spend the first few years with the family each time they moved, just having to move on sooner than them. I had got quite lost in plans for how it would work, trying to think of every possibility down to the finest detail.

Looking at Rosalie now though made part of me wonder if we would be able to carry it off. For the first attempt by two of us to live a different type of life to fail so abjectly was devastating. Would Edward and I be able to fare better? Were we planning to expose ourselves to unnecessary risks? I felt self doubt overwhelm me.

Edward was still looking at Rosalie, I didn't doubt listening to her sadness in her mind. "Are you staying here?"

"For now, Carlisle wants us to hang on until the dust settles, doing a vanishing act just looks too suspicious."

"But after that?" He looked sad and I knew he already knew the answer to his question.

"No, we think we might go away for a while. We've never been to Australia and Emmett has a fancy for Kangaroo." Rosalie gave a strained smile.

"Isn't Australia a bit sunny for you?" I could understand why they had never been before. From what I had seen of Australia on the TV it did not look an ideal spot for people who sparkled in the sunlight.

Emmett grinned at me "Yes, but it's also not very populated, there are huge swathes of Bush in the middle of the country where no one lives at all. We could go weeks without seeing anyone else, it will be very peaceful. Plus they also have crocodiles" He added with a grin.

"Does that appeal to you, at the moment?" I wondered how Emmett was feeling about being around people now.

"It does, it's harder to resist for a while, with human blood in your system." He looked down at the table again.

I considered for a moment the possibility of Rosalie and Emmett leaving the family, and the life we had created in Wendle. If they went it would make no sense for Edward to stay with our current cover story, which would explain why he was talking about us leaving too. He could always hide out at the house with the rest of us, but I didn't think I would be able to leave him every day to go to school.

I was resolved; we would also have to go, maybe we could travel with them for a while. The idea of some blazing sun actually sounded pretty appealing to me just then.

"How long until we should leave Rosalie?" Edward said distracting me from our travel plans.

"They said they were going to be back in about 20 minutes from now, so soon. It takes about 10 minutes to get there on foot, we can do most of the trip via the forest and it's dark so even once we hit town again it shouldn't slow us down."

"What have they done so far?"

"Oh the usual." Rosalie waved the question away. I suddenly realised I had not really heard from Edward much about this sort of thing before, but everybody's attitudes had made me think they had dealt with the police more than he had led me to believe.

"I think I should go alone, there's no sense in all four of us going over there, it's unnecessary." Edward glanced at me hopefully, but I was having none of it.

"I agree," I glanced back at him, my face set "Emmett and Rosalie should stay here, I think two of us going makes much more sense." I stood up and made my way towards the door.

Edward, Rosalie and Emmett followed. I was glad Edward had stopped trying to argue the point.

"The two detectives are called Burton and Drake, they seem to be in charge." Rosalie also seemed to want to come with us, but did not push the issue with Edward.

"We'll come back here when we're done, Carlisle will be coming later, he'll be staying at the Ball until it's time to take Ness back."

With that Edward slipped into the night, with me close behind him.

**A/N - Press the green button!**


	13. Something Else

Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight!

We ran together through the night. We didn't speak, we simply ran silently, as if we were wraiths.

We had covered most of the distance via the forest, but the last mile or so we would have to run through the streets to reach the house. As we stepped out of the cover of the greenery Edward took my hand, I wasn't sure if it was to keep me close or for comfort, maybe it was for both. We both crouched low and darted in and out of the shadows, avoiding the street lights.

The area we were in was totally residential, the houses were all uniformly built, row upon row of pastel coloured 1950s houses, many with white picket fences and toys in the yard. Despite the fact it was only around 10.30pm on a Saturday night the roads were relatively quiet, no more than two or three cars passed us as we made our way towards our goal. As we moved I could hear sounds coming from the houses we passed; in some there were televisions blaring, or people talking, in others the murmurs of lovers.

I didn't remember precisely which house we were looking for, but I didn't need to ask Edward, it was apparent as soon as we approached it. The house was surrounded by Police tape, barring entry to all but the officers involved. Most of the other houses in the streets surrounding it were mainly in darkness, but in this one the lights were blazing in every room. I could hear the sounds of movement from inside, but nothing else.

We didn't approach the house, two three doors down there was a large tree in a neighbours front garden, Edward pulled me towards it, then he shot up into the branches. I followed suit and found him standing on a branch in the midst of the foliage. The cover was dense enough to protect us from view, but still allowed us a reasonable line of sight into the house we were to watch.

He took my hand again as we stood in the tree. He did not look over to me, he was already closely observing what was happening inside, but I watched him for a moment. I knew that there was unlikely to be any danger posed to us here tonight, but I was glad I was here nonetheless. The thought of him being here alone was not something I was willing to consider.

I turned my attention to the house. I could hear the men working inside, searching for evidence. As they moved slowly around on their hands and knees we could see them, there were 2 men in white all-in-one suits in the hallway, both with small tools in their hands. They went in and out of our view as they methodically worked their way around the downstairs of the house.

Suddenly one of them sat back with a groan.

"What's up Stu, flagging are you?" His colleague spoke without breaking from what he was doing.

"We've been doing this for hours, there's just nothing here. Not a trace of evidence. I just don't get it." The man called Stu was clearly frustrated by the thorough cleanup job Edward and Emmett did before they left yesterday.

"That can't be true; we just haven't found it yet. You know everybody slips up somewhere," Stu's colleague had obviously not given up yet; he scowled as Stu stood up and walked towards the staircase.

"Then where's the blood Jack? This all feels pretty fucking creepy to me." Stu was examining the staircase, I realised the white tape I could see on the stairs indicated where the body had been found.

"I don't know, maybe it was a vampire." The man called Jack still did not stir from his work, but I almost collapsed in shock, were they on to us?

Edward touched my hand, I glanced over at him and he shook his head with a slight frown. Did he mean the man didn't really think that? "He's joking, or he thinks he is anyway." Edward spoke so quietly that there was no chance he was heard by anyone but me.

"Ah, fuck off you smartass." The man called Stu was grinning as he swore at his colleague. He bent back to the ground and continued with his fine search of the rug.

"When's Drake coming back?" Jack was obviously ignoring his colleague's foul mouth and continuing with his job.

"Soon I guess, he looked freaked out didn't he?"

"Yeah." Jack was a man of few words; I hoped Edward was getting more from this than me.

I looked over at him and pulled a face, what was he hearing?

He hesitated for a second, then spoke quickly again. "The detective, Drake, was looking really worried the last time the man called Stu saw him. He was sweating and every time the other detective, Burton, said anything to him he just glared at him or told him to shut up. If his memories are accurate Drake is seriously worried about something."

"That must be the one Rose said looked sick." I also spoke in a tiny whisper, but from where we were there was no one to hear us.

"Yes I think it must be." Edward paused for a few moments before he spoke again. "Neither of the two men in the house is particularly suspicious, they both think someone got lucky here, which is why there's no evidence. The one called Stu wants to get on with it and get to a bar."

After that we were silent again. We stayed where we were and continued to watch Stu and Jack with their fruitless search. I was growing increasingly impatient for the detectives to arrive, but Edward was simply still as he continued to listen.

After a few minutes I heard a car in the distance. Soon a dark coloured saloon pulled up outside the house, two men got out of it and walked towards the front door.

The first man, who had been driving was tall and fairly young looking, with cropped mousy coloured hair. He looked calm and well presented despite the hour. This was in direct contrast to the second detective to get out of the car. He was older, but still handsome with bushy fair hair which had receded a little at the front.

The older man, who I could only assume was Drake from his demeanour, looked scared. His clothes looked as if he had been wearing them for days, and as we watched he dragged his hands through his already untidy hair, making it even worse. His face looked sweaty, and the set of his mouth was haggard. As soon as I saw him I was certain he suspected what had happened, what we were. The jolt of fear I felt when I saw him shot through my hand like an electric current, and Edward pulled me closer when he felt it.

Drake and Burton entered the house and started to speak to Stu and Jack, asking if they had found any new evidence of any substance. Meanwhile I was watching Edward who was focussing hard, listening to every thought of the new arrivals.

I was surprised at how relaxed he sounded when he spoke in an almost silent whisper. "Burton's not got a clue; his overriding thought is that he wants to get away soon enough tonight to screw his girlfriend before she goes to sleep."

He paused, like me his main question was about Drake's apparent fear. "Drake is afraid of someone who's coming here shortly, he hates him. He hates the fact he had to call him, but all of the signs were there. He's not even sure what he wants, he just knew he had to call him."

"Can you see why he's afraid of him?"

"No, he just keeps thinking that he is. Agent Hudson." Edward was speaking to me, but focussing on the man we were watching. His tone of voice became quieter as he relayed to me what he was getting from Drake's thoughts as he was hearing it. "Someone called Agent Hudson is coming, tonight. He's not from the Canadian Police, he's something special, gets called out on special cases. Especially if there are anomalies around bodies drained of blood and it's not obvious where it went."

I gasped. Edward did not react, still focussed on relaying the thoughts as he heard them.

"There are rules to follow when contacting Hudson, he hopes he followed them all ok. He doesn't want to get on his bad side." Edward cocked his head slightly to look at me and said "It's all very repetitive; he's not really going into many details."

"Who is this Hudson, are Mulder and Scully about to turn up too?" I tried to smile, but it came out as a grimace.

"I don't know." Edward frowned slightly as he returned his focus to the police below.

"Is he a vampire? Is that why he's afraid of him?" I was running through all sorts of possibilities in my head, and this seemed the most likely.

"Maybe, but I doubt it. There are not many of us who could work with the police without causing suspicion." Edward suddenly looked up at me and smiled gently. "Don't worry Bella, there's nothing that can harm us here, this is purely reconnaissance."

"What should we do, should we wait?"

"Definitely, I get the impression Agent Hudson will be along shortly."

I started to protest, but then stopped. This was why we were here, to see if we were at risk, and to me it was beginning to look like we might be. I pulled myself in closer to Edward, I wanted to be able to feel him tightly against my body. I was certain that he was right, that we were safe, but part of me was still afraid.

We waited for hours, unmoving in the branches of the tree we were using to conceal ourselves. As the first signs of the sun started to make their appearance on the horizon I heard a sound, a motorbike. From the noise it was clearly as powerful as the one Jasper had accepted to so willingly when Edward had given it to him, and it was going at an inhuman speed. Within a couple of short minutes of first hearing it, it appeared at the end of the street and screamed towards us.

The bike stopped outside of the woman's house. A figure climbed off, it was tall and slim, clad from head to toe in black biker leathers. The motorcyclist pulled off his black helmet and shook his head. The man was young, no more than twenty, probably less. He had long blonde hair which was loose and flicked around his head as he shook it. He was as tall as Edward, but no taller, and his build was slight, unimpressive. His features were narrow, he had blue eyes and a narrow nose and chin. In all he was nondescript, I knew instantly he was not a vampire from his looks alone.

My assessment of him took the barest instant, but as he shook his head I caught his scent and started. I felt Edward do the same beside me as we realised that the man, who we could only assume to be agent Hudson, was not a vampire, but was also not entirely human either. He was very clearly something else.

Edward squeezed my hand to get my attention and put his finger to his lips. Who knew what we were dealing with here, and if he wasn't quite human, what about him wasn't quite human?

A few seconds later Drake was at the front door of the woman's house, his demeanour was better than it had been earlier, but from my viewpoint I could hear his heart racing in his chest. "Hudson, I'm glad you could come." He stretched out his hand but Hudson walked past it without stopping, straight into the house.

"Tell me everything." Hudson's voice was low but full of authority. As he walked into the building I heard other heart rates increase. His presence, though not outwardly intimidating, was clearly causing stress amongst the humans at work.

Drake cleared his throat nervously. "At 3pm yesterday afternoon a body was found here." He voice was unsteady and he cleared his throat again, after that he seemed to gain some more confidence. "The owner of his house, a Mr. John Stoker, was returning home from a business trip and found his wife, Anna Stoker, dead on the stairs." I felt my stomach drop as I heard her name, it reinforced the reality of what had happened all over again. "There were signs of a break-in, the initial assessment is that she disturbed an intruder."

Hudson was walking slowly around the downstairs of the house as Drake spoke. He didn't glance at him once, I wondered if this was because he was aware of the affect his presence was having on the detective.

Drake continued "The pathologist took a look at her, she died of a broken neck, but she has also been drained totally of blood. We can't find any trace of blood here, and there's no other DNA evidence to be found. I know this is the kind of thing you're interested in." He was sweating as he spoke and wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. "I wasn't sure how to tell you over the phone, I remembered what you said, we've not discussed anything here....." He trailed off, Hudson was still not paying him any attention at all.

Everyone was watching as Hudson walked around the house again in silence, then he opened the back door and walked out into the yard.

"What's that about?" Burton now looked nearly as freaked out as his partner, I could only guess he hadn't come across Hudson before so hadn't realised what was coming.

Drake glared at him and mouthed at him to shut up. Stu and Jack had returned to their work, but I could hear from their heart rates that they had also been affected and were probably just glad of the distraction.

Hudson walked around the yard, still in silence. I stole a glance at Edward and he was stiff, his eyes were wide as he listened. He had unconsciously lowered into a defensive crouch and I matched him instantly. If my heart could beat it would have been racing at the expression on his face alone, I knew then that it was time to flee. I was sure we could get down from the tree without being seen by a human, but what was this man in front of us? Would he see us?

Slowly Hudson turned, he circled in one place several times, his eyes unfocussed. He stopped directly facing the tree in which we were concealed; suddenly his eyes seemed to look directly at us and he spoke.

"I know you're there. _Vampire_."

**A/N – I'd like to try something different this time. I'd really like to hear something, even just a little hello, from a few more people who are reading this. The next chapter is pretty much ready to go too, so how about we agree that I'll post it once I get to 50 reviews on this story? Thank you so much, I'm really looking forward to hearing from you!**


	14. Fight or Flight

Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight!

"_I know you're there. Vampire."_

Without a second of indecision Edward grabbed my hand and we dropped out of the tree like stones. He dragged me as we started to run back towards the forest, towards home. He was moving so quickly I started to lose my grip on his hand, and I almost tripped. In a second he had thrown me onto his back as he continued to fly forwards. As the wind whistled past my ears I wondered at the fact that, even as a vampire, I had never moved this fast.

We were half way home when he stopped and dropped me onto the forest floor. He sat down beside me and I threw my arms around him and buried my face in his neck. His reaction had scared me more than anything, and I began to sob against him.

"We can't go home, shit, what do we do?" Edward launched into a string of profanities, while at the same time gripping me to him tightly as I heaved in terror against him.

After a moment I regained a sense of control and sat back slightly. "What the hell was that?" My voice was shaking and I still spoke in a whisper despite the fact I could sense no one near us for miles.

"I'm not entirely sure, but you know as well as I do he wasn't human."

"But not vampire either. Did you recognise the scent? What was he?"

"He thinks of himself as a hunter. A Demon hunter."

"What?" I couldn't believe what I was hearing "Is there such a thing?"

"I don't know. I need to speak to Carlisle. We daren't go back to the house though, the hunter has a degree of latent tracking talent, there's a risk he might be able to trace us to the house if we go back there now."

Edward's phone began to ring, and I knew it would be Alice.

"Alice."

"Edward, what happened, you and Bella just vanished!" Her voice was high and panicked, I could hear Jasper trying to calm her in the background.

"Something came to the woman's house, I don't know what it was, but we daren't go back home right now in case he can track us." Edward got to his feet and pulled me up with him, I scanned around us, checking to see if we'd been followed; beside me he was doing the same. "Where are you?"

"We're on our way back from the ball, where are Rosalie and Emmett?"

"Back at the town house, I'll call them. We need to meet; _now_ Alice. I don't know how much trouble we're in here."

"Where?"

"Same place as last night, we're already on our way." Edward had pulled me back into a run, but not in the direction of the clearing. I raised an eyebrow at him questioningly, but followed nonetheless.

"Should we bring Ness?" Alice said, I wondered if Ness was close enough to her to be able to hear this conversation.

"No." I said to Edward, I didn't want her involved in any of this.

"Yes" He answered into the phone "We can't leave her alone at the house, just in case. Tell her everything Alice." He was looking at me meaningfully as he spoke and I did not protest again. The last thing I wanted was to leave her in danger.

With that Edward hung up on Alice and dialled, a moment later he was speaking to Rosalie. "We've got trouble Rose; we're meeting up in the clearing from last night. We're on our way now, but I'm going around the long way, just in case."

"What's happened Edward?" I could hear the worry in her voice.

"When we're all together Rose. We'll be there soon; the others are on their way back from the ball. Ness is coming too."

He hung up the phone again and stuffed it into his pocket.

We continued to run through the forest, changing direction several times, going a long way out of the way of our destination in an effort to make it harder for anybody to track us. Throughout we held hands, Edward glanced at me regularly, the look on his face varying between worry and outright panic. For my part I couldn't tear my eyes away from him, I didn't know what we were running from, but I was afraid because he was.

Eventually I could bear the waiting no longer. We were still running, but now we were again heading _away_ from the clearing, running down the middle of a narrow river to hide our scent. I pulled my hand away from Edward's and stopped, I walked slowly towards the river bank. The water in the deepest part of the river had reached my waist and I was soaked to the skin, I had time to be relieved that this did not make me uncomfortable anymore. Edward turned and was beside me on the bank in an instant.

"Why are you stopping, we have to keep going." His voice was urgent, he took my hand and started to pull me along again.

"Wait, Edward." I pulled his hand towards me and laid it on my chest. "Calm down. There's no one behind us. Just wait for a moment"

I managed to hold him there, I caught his eyes and felt the full force of the naked panic in them.

"You're frightening me Edward. And I think you're frightening yourself as well. He's not behind us, if he tracks us we'll know long before he gets near us."

He took a deep breath and looked around us. I could see my logic working on him and I felt the tension leaving his hand and arm. He suddenly gathered me up into his arms and held me close. "I can't believe I risked you like that Bella." His lips found mine and he kissed me forcefully for a moment. "Hudson is a Hunter, he thinks of himself as a Demon Hunter, but by that he means vampires. He's stronger and faster than a normal human, he could sense us up in that tree, he had a feeling in his gut sort of dragging him towards us."

"Is he a tracker, can he follow our scent?"

"I'm not sure, I think he can use the pull in his stomach to follow us, but I don't know how big a distance that would work over. I just didn't get to see enough of him." I could hear his voice getting rough with panic again, I knew we had to get to the family soon and try and work out what we did next.

"Edward, we've run a hundred miles to confuse our trail, let's go and meet up with everyone now, they must be arriving soon." He didn't seem convinced, so I tried a different angle "Maybe Carlisle will have some ideas, maybe he has come across this kind of thing before."

"Yes...... Carlisle." His face relaxed slightly again as he thought of his father figure, I could see I'd found the right argument to get him to return to the family.

I pulled away from him and tugged gently on his arm, in the direction of the clearing "Let's go, we don't want them to worry about us."

This time there was no deviation. We flew through the forest like arrows, straight towards the point at which by now our family must surely be assembling. As during the rest of our flight this evening, our hands did not part throughout our journey, Edward and I ran as one.

Eventually we reached the clearing, as I had expected everybody else was already there waiting for us. If the reason for our gathering had been different the picture before us would have been comical, standing in the forest everyone bar Rosalie and Emmett were still dressed for the ball, like the best dressed hikers on the planet. As we arrived they fell upon us, Ness reaching us first with a shriek of relief.

"Mom, Dad, oh my God I was so afraid." She threw herself into my arms and began to sob. Edward put his arms around both of us as we tried to soothe her. I rocked her in my arms as if she were a baby and made tiny clucking sounds into her hair.

"Edward, what happened?" Carlisle's voice was strained. He was within the huddle which currently surrounded us, made up of the entirety of our family.

Edward pulled away from Ness and me slightly, causing everybody else to take a couple of steps backward. Still keeping my arms around my daughter I turned to stand beside him, and again we all formed a loose circle before he began to speak.

"The detectives Rose and Emmett saw came back a little while after we got there. One was, and still is, fairly oblivious, the other not so much. Drake was the one who looked rather unwell, he didn't know what it all meant, but the body drained of blood and the completely clean crime scene made him think of another case he worked on last year."

In my arms Ness had now stopped crying, she was listening to her father speak with the same intensity as everyone else in the circle. She pulled away from me and took her own place in the ring, I realised our group of eight had become nine at that moment.

"Last year while working on something similar he met Agent Hudson, who told him if he ever came across a murder with the same basic facts, missing blood and no evidence, to contact him. He also told him not to talk about him in the vicinity of the murder, or to discuss any of the evidence. The reason Drake looked so sick today was that Agent Hudson scares the living daylights out of him, but he can't quite put a finger on why."

"And what of Agent Hudson?" Carlisle said.

"He arrived at first light. I'm not quite sure _what _he is, but he thinks of himself as a Demon Hunter. He doesn't smell human, nearly, but not quite, there's definitely something else about him." Edward looked contemplative as he spoke, reviewing the facts in his own mind as he related them to the rest of us.

"Like Jacob." Ness piped up. When all eyes turned to her she looked down to the ground, embarrassed, but Edward was staring at her wide eyed.

"Yes, _exactly _like Jacob!" he said.

"Do you think he's a shape shifter?" asked Carlisle,

"I don't think so, I saw nothing like that in his head at all, but think about it Carlisle. Like Jacob. The wolves are protectors of the tribe, I think that's kind of what Hudson is, only he is protecting everybody." Edward looked relieved to be able to attach a label to the Hunter, despite the fact that that label was far from comforting.

"That might explain why you and Bella vanished this evening." Alice said, sounding almost relieved "It was almost the same thing that happens when you're around the Quileutes."

"Could he hurt us Edward, are we at risk from him?" Jasper had been edging surreptitiously closer towards Alice as we had been speaking, I could see the stress clearly in his eyes.

"I'm not sure, I don't think he's sure actually. He knows what he is, and from his strength and abilities it is clear to him he could fight one or more of us, but-" Edward stopped and considered just for a moment. "He has clearly never seen an actual vampire. That he knows of anyway. He was wearing a crucifix, which indicates to me that he has some of the fake legends mixed up with the more factual ones. Plus he waited until daybreak to arrive......"

"Other than knowing you were there, does he know anything of us personally? Something that might lead him to the house?" Jasper had now taken Alice's hand, I suspected in an attempt to calm himself more than anything.

"I am certain he doesn't. Carlisle, have you heard of anything like this before?" Edward turned to Carlisle hopefully.

"No, I've never heard of any specific kind of protectors or Demon hunters among us, other than the Quileutes. I suppose though that their existence should lead us to draw the conclusion that other peoples would have similar kinds of protectors." Carlisle looked thoughtful for a moment "It could be that in this day and age the knowledge has been forgotten by modern man. The Google generation view us as fantasy, so the genetics of the Demon Hunters may continue, but without the knowledge that allows them to use their power."

"I don't think that makes him any less of a risk to us Carlisle." Edward was looking at Jasper as he spoke, the two of them having a silent conversation.

"We must kill him, he knows too much." Jasper spoke aloud what he and Edward had obviously been thinking about.

"I agree. I'm not sure if he can track us. If he can, even if we run, it might not be enough." Edward said. His voice was calm and full of certainty.

"No!" I shouted, immediately shouting down Jasper and Emmett who were busy agreeing with each other and Edward. "Aren't we saying this man, Hudson, is the good guy? He kills vampires, to protect people. He's the good guy! He doesn't know we're good vampires, he will only know about vampires who kill people, maybe if we can speak to him....." I trailed off when I saw the look on Edward's face.

"Bella, the reason he's here, he's going to be hard pressed to believe we're good vampires." He looked at me sadly as it all fell into place in my mind.

To this hunter we were no better than any of the rest. One of our number had killed an innocent woman named Anna Stoker, and even if he could be convinced that the rest of us were innocent, we would fight to defend Emmett. I looked over towards my brother and silently cursed him for making me guilty as well.

"Edward, listen to me." Despite everything I could not allow him to kill Agent Hudson, Edward had never killed an innocent in his life, and I would not allow him to start by killing a man who's role was to protect all innocents. "Do you remember once I asked you if you were a superhero? You answered me by telling me that you were the bad guy. Well you're not. You never have been. But if you kill this man, this protector of the innocent, that is what you will become."

A look of pain crossed his face as I spoke, he ran his hand through his hair and he glared at me. "Bella, what else am I supposed to do? I will not leave you and Ness at risk."

"You don't even think he knows how to kill us anyway, how much risk are we really at?" I could see he could be convinced. Edward, after all, would only ever want to do what was right.

"Bella," Jasper stepped in. I knew he would be harder to appease. If he believed Alice to be at risk he would stop at nothing to protect her. "Agent Hudson apparently knows about vampires, and now knows that we are here in the area. He can do more than destroy us, he can expose us for what we are, and we all know how that ends."

"He doesn't even know who we are!"

Edward interjected "I can't be sure of that. We only saw him for a few moments, I didn't get a good enough look at his mind, and even he doesn't really know what he is capable of." He still seemed to be swaying towards Jasper's way of thinking.

I was clutching at straws trying to think of something to deviate Jasper from what he already saw as his predetermined course. "Alice, can you see anything, are we at risk?"

"I can't see this man, he's as hidden to me as the wolves and Ness. All I can see is everyone else's future flickering in and out of existence as your plans change. It's giving me a headache." Alice was scowling furiously, either at the headache or her inability to see what was to come. I mentally swore at her lack of visions, often this was the last resort in swaying Jasper's course.

"We have to protect ourselves Bella, this man must die on our terms." Jasper seemed more set than ever now.

"Carlisle, have you ever seen anything like it, maybe with the Volturi?" I knew he was my last chance. Aside from fighting against my brothers and my husband, alongside this man, I could see no way to prevent them from committing a second crime, this one maybe worse than the first.

"No, I've never seen or heard of such a thing as this. I've never come across a human who would hunt and destroy vampires, how would they even have a chance?" Carlisle was looking at me sadly, he shared my distress at the thought of another murder by our family, but like me he didn't see how we could stop it.

While he was talking though, a sudden thought crossed my mind. I stopped and turned my body fully towards Carlisle and stared at him. He caught my eye and I saw a puzzled look in his eyes at the intensity of my stare.

"That's not strictly true though, is it Carlisle?" My voice sounded strange in my ears, Edward noticed it and turned to look at me curiously. I did not continue immediately, thoughts were buzzing around my head distracting me. Quickly everyone else noticed my thoughtful pose, and all eyes turned towards me, but I kept my stare trained on Carlisle.

"You do know of someone, a human, who hunted vampires. Quite successfully in fact. He caught one, and although he was wounded, his fellow hunters caught up with the vampire again while he fought it." I didn't pause, but I saw realisation begin to dawn on some of the faces around me. "How many normal humans do you think it would take to track down one of us, even with modern day weapons? Dozens? Hundreds? Would any number of them actually be able to destroy one of us? Yet, we know of one human who managed to track down and catch a vampire single handed, and not only that, but to survive the encounter." At this I paused, but still nobody else spoke. "Do you think that you might have been a Demon Hunter Carlisle? It might explain a lot about who you are."

At that I stopped speaking and looked around the circle. Most of the family were now looking at Carlisle, but he was still very fixedly looking at me.

"Human memories fade. I don't remember anything like that, but I remember hunting the vampire who changed me. I remember catching him, despite the fact that logic dictates I should not have been able to. I've always said that he turned and fell upon me in hunger, it seems the most logical reasoning, but, I've always been pretty sure that actually - _I caught him._"

"Has anybody here ever been caught by a human in pursuit of them before? Even close?" I whispered the question; I couldn't quite find my voice.

There was utter silence among us for several moments, until Jasper said "It changes nothing."

"It does" said Edward "It means that we now suspect, from personal experience, that this Hunter is capable of tracking us, hunting us, catching us. Who knows what else? He poses an enormous risk to all of us."

"No! That's not the point at all." I raged in frustration, how could they still believe we should destroy this being? "Look at Carlisle, he was alone as a newborn, and was still able to prevent himself from taking a single life, such was his urge to protect. He was the first to discover he could drink the blood of animals, his compassion is literally legendary, even amongst humans."

I remembered one of the first true legends I came across of a real vampire when I was a human, that of _Stregoni benefici_, the good vampire. "The vampire Carlisle became is a reflection of the person he was before, a good person. Maybe a protector of innocents." I looked around the clearing, catching the eyes of every one of my family in turn, begging them to hear me. "Would you really be able to destroy a being as inherently good as him?"

There was silence again. Esme was standing beside Carlisle with her arms wrapped around him, he looked winded as he contemplated the possibilities tonight had raised. The rest of us stood patiently, waiting for him to regroup his thoughts. Jasper, Rosalie and Emmett were exchanging a look that told me they were still planning on hunting the Hunter, Alice meanwhile wore a blank expression, searching the future.

I turned to Edward, he was gazing at me in wonder. "In a hundred years, I have never questioned what happened to Carlisle. The way your brain works sometimes...." He smiled his beautiful crooked smile at me, and I knew that he, at least, was now on my side.

"I know. I'm a freak." I smiled back. I let myself relax, lost in his eyes for a moment, until Carlisle brought me back to focus.

"Edward, do you have any idea if he'll try to track us if we leave?" Carlisle spoke quietly; it made us all focus on him intently. "Do you think he'd be able to?"

"Honestly Carlisle, I'm not sure. All I know is that he's not actually come face to face with an actual vampire before, and he wants to. He definitely now has mine and Bella's.... I don't know how to put it..... vibe? I don't know what kind of distance that works over, I didn't get the impression he used scent at all, but I couldn't be sure." Edward was grimacing in his frustration.

"Do you think we're at risk?" Carlisle pushed him further.

"I DON'T KNOW CARLISLE!" Edward roared in his frustration, "If only there was a way I could get close to him again, but his tracking ability would mean he would definitely sense me as soon as I was close enough to read his mind."

"Edward." I called his name softly, I reached out and took his hand to calm him before I continued, he would only be upset with himself if he lost control here. "There may be a way. You don't believe he knew we were there due to our scent?"

"No."

"He said he knew a vampire was there, singular, did he know that there were two of us there?" It had seemed fairly obvious to me immediately that my shield may work against this Hunter, but Edward had been under so much stress since his arrival I think he had forgotten about it.

Edward considered for a moment "No, in his thoughts he was thinking about _a_ vampire. No I don't think he knew you were there." He grinned at me, understanding hitting him at all once.

"So we go back and find him, the way he came after the sun was up makes me think he's operating on some of the modern myths about vampires, so he won't be expecting us to be around during the day. I can shield you, without pulling you right in so you can still hear him, as long as we stay out of sight we can watch him all day, try and learn as much as we can about him."

"And if you find that he is a threat to us?" Jasper still seemed to prefer the option of killing the Hunter outright, but I could see Rosalie and Emmett were now with us, so I hoped that would be enough to win us some time to investigate.

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it." Carlisle's eyes flashed at Jasper. "Are you really so impetuous Jasper that you would be prepared to risk your family in a fight with a being we know nothing about?"

At that Jasper was silent, but I could sense the fury coming off of him at Carlisle's implied condemnation.

"I can't see you at all." Alice was still searching the future, her eyes were blank and she was completely still as she spoke. "Our futures have completely vanished to me, all of them....... It frightens me."

"We know this is what happens with the wolves too Alice, we will be ok. I won't take any risks." Edward tried his best to comfort her, but Alice was never more uncomfortable than when her sixth sense was blind.

"What shall we do while you're gone?" Rosalie had so far remained quiet, but I could see that not being able to help was frustrating for her, seeing as she felt the blame laid at her door as surely as Emmett's for this fiasco.

"All of you, go back to the house, we have no reason to believe that you are at any risk at the moment." Edward was mobilising into action, "It's, Sunday so there's no need for anybody to leave, we will be back before tomorrow morning. Carlisle, I will keep my phone on me, I'll call you if there are any problems, please only call me if there is immediate danger."

"Rose, Look after Ness for me." I tried to hand my daughter over to Rosalie, but she clung to me.

"No, Mom, don't I get any say in this, don't go. Let's just leave, all of us together, now." She hung onto me, but was unable to resist as I pried her fingers from my arm.

"We'll be perfectly safe Ness, go with Rosalie, don't argue!" I pushed her harshly towards Rosalie, I was also afraid to be parted from her, but I had to ensure _all_ of my family was safe.

While this was happening I could hear Edward muttering to Carlisle. I was sure Ness was distracted enough to not hear what he was saying, but I couldn't miss it.

"If we're not back by first light Monday morning Carlisle, _run_."

**A/N – Thank you everybody for your reviews for the last chapter! It was nice to hear from so many of you, so I decided to post this without waiting to hit 50! But now you know – reviews definitely make me type faster – bear it in mind....... Next chapter likely to be up before Friday as it's shaping up nicely****. :).**


	15. A Virtue

Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight!

After the rest of the family had left, Edward pulled me gently to the side of the river running through the clearing. We both sat down on a large boulder, worn perfectly smooth by millennia of water and ice. I stroked its surface, surprised both by how fragile it felt under my hand and how warm, even on this fairly cool September day.

"Shouldn't we go Edward, we don't know where Hudson is, it might take us a while to find him." I didn't understand why he was relaxing right now, stretched out on the boulder looking as devastatingly handsome as ever.

"Don't worry, I know where he's staying, and I won't have any trouble picking up _that_ scent. Will you?" He wrinkled his nose at me. He was right; Hudson's scent was actually less pleasant than the wolves', if that was possible.

"No, but still...." I trailed off. Now I was sitting here with him, I actually had no immediate urge to move.

"Patience Love. He will probably still be on the lookout for us at best; at worst he might be actively hunting us now. Either way, I want to give him enough time to give up on finding us immediately, your shield might work if he's not using scent to recognise us, but we don't know how finely tuned his other senses are. Let's give him a chance to forget about us before we find him again."

"Hmmm" I smiled at him as I shuffled closer to him. "I guess we'll just have to hang out here for a bit then won't we?" I stretched out next to Edward on the boulder. We both lay on our sides facing each other, each resting our heads in one hand, with the others clasped together. I tangled my feet in with his and laid and appreciated his beauty for a moment. Gazing into his eyes I felt my heart soar at my utter love for him, his handsome features merely representative to me of the magnificence of his soul. Around us the forest was noisy, animals and birds going about their early morning business. The river gurgled as it ran past us and there was the occasional splash of fish swimming past.

We stayed like that together in silence for some time, just gazing into each other's eyes. I couldn't believe that it was only this time last week I had arrived in Wendle, so much had happened. I felt like we had never been tested so much as in the last few days, and yet here we were. That thought made me smile.

"What are you thinking? It still drives me quite mad when I don't know what's on your mind." Edward reached over to me, my hand still clasped in his, to stroke the side of my face.

Without a word I wrapped him deep into my shield. I sighed at the pleasure of it. It was almost like making love to him, and his warmth inside my mind was overwhelming.

"Hmmm, I've missed that." He closed his eyes and rested his head back into his hand. "Once this is done we have to go somewhere I can just live inside your mind, all of the time." He was smiling as he pulled me closer to him.

_I can live with that. I was thinking about London for Christmas, maybe Hogmanay in Edinburgh...._

"So soon?" He opened his eyes again and looked at me surprised, but the glowing smile that went with it reinforced my decision that I would do anything that made him this happy. In truth, I thought it was going to make me that happy as well.

_Sooner maybe, if we need to run after today. Let's just go, just us._

He was grinning from ear to ear, but then I saw a little thoughtful frown cross his face.

"What?" I spoke out loud out of habit rather than necessity; it still felt weird having full conversations with him just in my mind.

"Nothing, nothing." He was grinning sheepishly, but I hated it when he kept things from me too.

I rolled us over so I was on top of him; I straddled him and caught his hands behind each of my knees. I leant forward so I was hovering over him and used my most menacing tone. "Tell me!" I demanded. "Otherwise I'm going to make you!" I made a wriggling action over his stomach with my fingers as I grinned at him.

"I'm not ticklish Bella." He was trying to keep a straight face, but I had already been overtaken by the giggles, and he couldn't help but join in.

"Tell me!" My words were almost lost in my laughter now, as my hands roamed around his body. No, he might not be ticklish, but I knew a few spots which would get a reaction. I ran my hands down his chest and tweaked his nipples firmly. We were both still giggling like idiots, but I let him pull his hands loose, which immediately sneaked round me pulling me down so I was flush against his body.

"Ok, don't torture me Love." He managed to control his laughter, but then raised a single eyebrow at me. "You'll laugh at me."

I waited for it, I had a sneaking suspicion I knew what he was going to say, but I let him say it.

"I was wondering whether or not to ship my Vanquish over...."

"I knew it! If ever you leave me it's going to be for that car." I rolled my eyes at him, but then leant in and kissed his mouth, which was once again looking sheepish.

"Never! Forget the car! I'll leave it here and let it go to rust!"

I shook my head at him, overreacting as usual "You don't need to go that far, maybe we'll just put it in storage and buy a new one when we get there." I knew Edward and cars, the only thing he would like better than his Vanquish would be the thought of buying another one.

"Well, I have heard good things about the DB9........" He trailed off as we relaxed into each other.

Our faces were only an inch apart. I looked into his eyes and saw they were still the perfect honey colour that only came from the grizzly bears we had found early yesterday morning. I rested my hands on each side of his face and traced my thumbs around his beautiful unlined eyes, before I leant over and put a kiss on each.

He whispered "When on earth did I get this lucky?" He reached up and stroked my hair back off of my face, it had pooled around his head and shoulders as I leant over him. "I love you so much, my Bella."

"Edward." I ached for his touch, I moaned as he ran his hand into my hair and pulled my face to his.

He gripped me tightly to him and I melted into his embrace. My lips urgently sought his, and we kissed with a passion, both gasping for breaths that we didn't need. I repeatedly traced my hands over his face, studying the curve of his cheekbones, the arches over his eyes and set of his jaw. I revelled in memorising him; his perfect features, my angel, my love, my life. Our lips parted for a few seconds and he murmured my name again and again as he trailed kisses along the curve of my jaw, causing my stomach to flutter at the sheer pleasure of his breath on my skin. Once again our lips sought each other but this time we joined in a sweet languorous kiss, finding peace together. We moved only slightly against each other, no need for wild passion now; we simply lay together and loved as we would for an eternity.

As our kiss became more leisurely I thought about all sorts of things, in a way we had a one sided conversation as I knew he would be listening to every thought I had. I remembered how at first I hadn't been able to concentrate on manipulating my shield when he kissed me, but now I thought I could hold him like this forever if he wanted me to.

_I wonder what Europe is like, I know you've seen it, but my only visit was to Volterra, and I'd blocked out as much of that as possible _before_ the change. I'd love to go to London first, to see all of the galleries, and the British Museum, and the Library. I wonder if it really rains there as much as they say it does, I hope so as then we can be almost normal there as well, at least until spring._

_We could also go to Yorkshire, that's where the Brontes wrote all of their books, I wonder if the Yorkshire moors are still wild like they were a couple of centuries ago. _

_Carlisle was born in England wasn't he, I wonder if there are more vampires there than there are here? _

_I wonder how many vampires an Island with a population of only 60 million could handle? How many would it take to actually make an impact on the population? Actually maybe that explains why the British all speak so nicely, maybe most of them are actually vampires and are from a different age. Hmm, doesn't explain why they've got such an ugly Prime Minister though, surely if...._

Edward cut me off by pulling away and laughing a great booming laugh at me. "It is very distracting trying to kiss you when you are busy deciding an entire nation is populated mainly by vampires. Don't I distract you anymore?" He stuck his bottom lip out in a pout, but I could see he was restraining a smile.

I laughed at him and kissed him firmly on the lips again. "Don't be silly. I'm actually just really excited about taking this trip. And, you know, my brain never turns off." I shrugged my shoulders as he allowed himself to smile.

"I always knew you had an interesting mind, I love that I get to hear it these days. I won't tell Carlisle about your conclusion about his homeland though."

"No please don't" I had to laugh, I had probably already caused Carlisle enough aggravation for today. "Is he ok?"

"Yes, your little theory this morning really threw him though."

"Did he consider it?"

"Yes, he was actually surprised by how well the idea fitted in to what he remembers. He remembers chasing the vampire who changed him, and he remembers being well ahead of everybody else who were hunting it with him. I mean a long way ahead, I can see his memory in his thoughts and he wasn't just fast for a human, he was _fast._"

"So, does he really think he might actually have caught the vampire, whilst human?" I was interested now, I realised that Edward had probably focussed very carefully on Carlisle while he had been thinking about this. It would be as important to him as to Carlisle himself.

"The memories are very faded, but he thinks it's a serious possibility, but he can't be sure." It was Edwards turn to shrug; I could see he was reliving Carlisle's memories in his mind. "But, he does wonder if your theory might explain why he was able to go without feeding as a newborn for so long. The urge within him to protect human life was so strong, he thinks that could be something other than just a compassionate nature."

I was nodding as he spoke, the theory did fit, but then we were talking about something that had happened nearly 400 years ago.

"We'll never be certain, of course, but I think Carlisle is probably going to spend some time looking into it. You know how he just loves a theory to work on." He suddenly looked at me slyly. "Not that it really matters one way or another to you, does it?"

Now it was my turn to look sheepish. "No, not really" I admitted. My main concern had been to prevent the family leaving on a hunting mission at that moment. When the possibility crossed my mind that Carlisle may have been a Hunter similar to Hudson I had clung to it like a life raft.

"And you got your own way." He was clearly not angry with me over the fact I had manipulated him so I decided to confess completely, he had seen it all in my mind already I was sure.

"I did. All I wanted to do was to stop you all going off and trying to kill the Hunter. He is clearly the good guy here." I deliberately repeated my mantra from the conversation earlier. "You have to admit though, it's a possibility. I hadn't thought about it when you told me Carlisle's story, because I was human at the time, but the fact that Carlisle says he caught up to the vampire because he was young and fast is..... odd. Even an old vampire can move in a way no normal human can. Then add to that his incredible compassion, his urge to protect life above all else, even as a newborn......" Talking it through I realised that the idea did actually make some sense. "But we'll never know."

"We shall see, Carlisle was already making plans to look into his DNA versus some of the rest of ours, plus he's thinking about a trip to London himself to look up some of his genealogy."

"But you're talking about the 1640s, what would he find?" Even now I struggled to think of Carlisle as being as old as he was, I couldn't even think of a building I had seen that was more than 200 years old.

"England isn't like America; it's been there so much longer. It's actually relatively easy to trace family trees back as far as that; people do it all the time."

I contemplated for a moment, "Maybe we could go with Carlisle when he's doing that, it sounds really....... cool." I felt a fool, but I couldn't think of another word that covered it. It sounded cool.

"Yes, I can just see you surrounded by ancient books, you'll have a whale of a time." He was laughing at me, so I scowled at him and poked him in the ribs.

"Ow, ow, have mercy." He laughed again and I couldn't help but join him. I was never happier than when he laughed, it was such a carefree sound.

Suddenly I thought of something. "Earlier, when we were running here, I couldn't keep up with you." I narrowed my eyes at him, studying him.

"You know I'm faster than you Bella."

"Faster yes, but not that much. I nearly _fell over _you were dragging me so much faster than I can go. Do you know how long it is since I nearly fell over? Then you were still going really fast even carrying me, it was like we were flying!" I remembered the sensation of being on his back earlier when we ran, and with perfect vampire recall I could see that I was right, the speed had been something else.

"You're right, of course." He looked thoughtful for a minute. "I think if I was human you would say I'd had an adrenaline rush. I was just so panicked being there with you, everything else just went out of my mind. I just had to get you away from there. I actually hardly even remember running, and when we stopped and I dropped you, I was actually _tired._" He grinned at me. "Did you get motion sickness again?"

"No. At one point I was a bit worried about some of the trees though." I grinned back, but then my heart sank a little as I saw Edward look up to the sky, noting how far the sun had moved during our time in this haven.

"Bella....."

"I know. We have to go."

"It's nearly noon, it gives us a few more hours of daylight to follow him. I really don't think he'll expect us to be around at lunchtime." Edward stood up and pulled me up by the hand beside him, I could feel the tension in his arm and his face suddenly contorted with worry.

"Everything's going to be ok Edward." I held his hand tightly in mine. I knew he must be terrified of taking me back into the lion's den.

"I hope you're right." He kissed my hand, before leading me back into the forest.

**A/N - Review, review, review! Edward and Bella needed a bit of a rest, the next few chapters are going to be a ride! That's 3 chapters this week, so I'm taking the weekend off. I am English, and we do have a really ugly Prime Minister, I really don't think there's any excuse. So, what do you think, could Carlisle have been something a bit different before he was changed?**


	16. Perspective

Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight!

The midday sun was shining brightly as we ran through the forest away from the clearing and both Edward and I were casting rainbows across everything we passed. I looked down at my hands as we ran, fascinated again by the sparkles being thrown off by my own body. The forest around Calgary was not as dense or dark as that in Forks, and there were many breaks in the canopy of trees above us allowing shafts of light down to make us shimmer like ghosts running through the forest.

"How are we going to covertly watch anyone on a day like this Edward?" I was worried enough about our decision to spy on the Hunter, but as we ran I realised that it wouldn't just be him we needed to worry about on a day like today.

"We'll have to stay in the car; I have no intention of getting close to him anyway, just in case. The Alfa has tinted windows; it can be done Love I can assure you." He smiled at me reassuringly and I remembered his last efforts at covertly spying on someone, in Port Angeles, some years ago.

We ran the short distance to the highway that headed towards Calgary quickly, and as we reached the edge of the forest I spotted the Alfa sitting waiting for us in a lay-by.

"Alice!" We both said at the same time with matching grins. It was very handy living with a psychic. We had never even considered running home for the car, rather we had run straight towards the highway knowing that it would be there waiting for us.

We trailed up towards the car under the shadows of the edge of the forest, finally flitting towards it during a slight lull in the traffic. Once we were out of the protective shade of the forest both of us were casting off blinding rays of light, so I was relieved when we made it into the car without incident. We were both on edge and I saw Edward grasp the steering wheel tightly as soon as we were safely ensconced, a hint to the stress he was under.

Inside the car was a short note from Alice, with good news from all sides.

_I am starting to be able to see flickers of you around the Hunter, not a lot but maybe enough to help, keep your phone on you._

_The sun will go in for the rest of today at 12.47pm._

I looked at the clock on the dashboard and saw that it was currently showing 12.25pm, so by the time we got into Calgary the sun would be gone. "Well, at least that's one less thing to worry about." I said looking over to Edward, who hadn't started the car.

"I need you to promise me something Bella." He was looking straight ahead, staring at the steering wheel as if it held the meaning of life. His face was serious and I could see he was fighting the same panic he had been feeling all day.

"Anything." As soon as I said it I regretted it, but I knew that for him taking me back to the Hunter must be terrifying.

"If we get into any kind of trouble, you must run and leave me to face him alone. Promise me." He swung to face me suddenly and held my gaze.

I froze, how could I promise to abandon him if he needed me?

He saw my hesitation and carried on "I cannot fight if I know you're there, I'll be too worried about protecting you and God alone knows what would happen. I have to know you're safe. This is the only way I can do this Bella, otherwise we're back to plan A."

I guessed plan A was hunting the Hunter with Jasper and Emmett, an idea I could not in any way condone. "I promise Edward, but let's not let it get that far shall we?"

He grimaced "No let's not." Still he did not start the car, and I was beginning to worry that he was having second thoughts despite my promise, when he said "Why would Alice suddenly be able to see around him? She's been around the wolves for years, but they still cause just as much of a problem for her as they ever did. So does Renesmee. Why would this man Hudson be any different?" he looked over towards me as if I should know the answer.

"Maybe he's not quite as different as they are; maybe it's a good thing?" I chewed on my bottom lip for a moment, until I remembered again how much sharper my teeth were these days. "Maybe it means he's less of a risk than we thought at first?"

This idea seemed to cheer Edward up greatly. "Yes, that sounds remarkably possible Bella!" His shoulders relaxed for the first time in days as he started the car and we began our journey back into Calgary.

It had only been a few hours since we'd left Calgary the first time, departing the ball early at Rosalie and Emmet's request. In the daylight it had lost the romance it had held the previous night, when the city had seemed to shimmer in some kind of fairytale magic. Now it felt much like any major metropolitan city, busy streets, cars and people everywhere. Dirt and dust and traffic fumes filled the air. Mostly invisible to humans, the pollution in the air felt like a clogging blanket on my skin and I hated it. Calgary was no worse than any other major city I had been to since I had become a vampire, better than many actually, but it made me uncomfortable and reminded me of why I so much preferred living in the fresh air of the open country now.

By the time we had found a parking space in a back street the sun had gone in, and we were able to search for our target with complete freedom. Edward was certain that Hudson would either be at the Calgary Police Headquarters or at the hostel he was staying at. We had decided to try the police station first as at nearly 1pm we thought he was likely to be working rather than resting.

The Police headquarters was a large grey office block. When we arrived it seemed to be relatively quiet being a Sunday, but still a steady stream of both police and civilians made their way in and out of the building. We stood outside, on the other side of the street for a moment, and I looked to Edward to ask silently what we should do next. I could hear lots of voices coming from the building, but to be able to really focus on any particular conversation I would need to be closer, I wasn't sure if the same was true for him.

"He's here." He said quietly "I need to get closer."

"We'll be seen." Despite my determination to come to Calgary, I was now afraid. I was shielding Edward, so I hoped that Hudson would not know we were here, but the last time I saw Ness kept playing back over to me in my mind. The look on her face as Rosalie had led her away was full of fear for us, and I was full of conflicting emotions. My fears for myself and my husband were magnified by her very existence, and my fear of leaving her behind.

"Follow me." Edward was still whispering conspiratorially when he took my hand and led me in the opposite direction down the street.

We walked with the other pedestrians casually, smiling and joking and trying to look relaxed so as not to draw attention to ourselves. Half a block down he pulled me across the street and straight into an alleyway between two large office blocks. The alley was dark and dingy, along each side there were huge garbage bins used by the offices and shops on either side of us. I could smell rats and a little shiver ran up my spine, but then I caught myself and had a little chuckle at the thought of being afraid of a rat.

"Where are we going?" I said. The end of the alleyway was blocked off with a tall plain brick wall. There was nowhere to go. Edward was grinning at me, obviously amused by my confusion.

"Up." He winked at me as he led me towards a fire-escape and directed me upwards.

As I climbed through the metal railings of the fire escape I could feel Edward following close behind me. The building was over twenty stories tall, but we reached the roof in no time at all.

I stepped onto the rooftop and suddenly Calgary was a very different place. Surrounding the central metropolis of high rise buildings and traffic was a beautiful ring of lush green. The river running along the side of the city looked crisp and clean and alive and the mountains in the distance were magnificent, giving the city a majestic backdrop which I couldn't tear my eyes away from. I breathed in and cleared my lungs of the soot from the ground, and smelled the clean air of the mountains wafting towards us. A feeling of calm came over me and I realised that I could really fall in love with this place.

I turned to see Edward step onto the rooftop beside me. He smiled and I wondered if he sometimes couldn't read my mind even when he wasn't inside it these days.

"Beautiful isn't it Love?" He came up behind me and squeezed me gently around the waist.

"It is Edward. It's amazing what a little perspective does for you."

"I chose Calgary for you, you know. I thought it was somewhere you could be happy." He looked wistful for a moment, maybe thinking about the life in Calgary that it seemed we were unlikely to get for now.

Then he took my hand and led me to the other side of the building.

"We need to be five buildings down from here; all of the gaps between them are small so it won't be difficult." He grinned at me and started to take a step back.

"We're jumping?" I looked at him incredulously.

"It's not very far Bella, no more than 30 feet at most, nothing you've not done a thousand times." He smiled again and with a quick hop jumped to the building on the other side of the alley. He moved low and fast, I was certain that no one at street level would be able to see anything to alarm them.

"Great," I muttered to myself. "I'll probably fall in a giant garbage bin or something." I knew that the distance wasn't a problem; I was just struggling to adjust to doing something so alien in this setting. I'd never tried to do anything like it before. Jumping over a river or through treetops was one thing, but this felt like a very human environment and I was as nervous as hell. I looked over the edge of the building I was standing on and saw into the alley below. It looked a surprisingly long way down.

"Well, here goes nothing." I mumbled as I took a step back and followed Edward's lead.

After my moment of dalliance it was as easy as I had already known it would be to leap across the neighbouring buildings, until moments later we were both standing atop the Calgary Police Headquarters. From this position I could much more easily hear the conversations going on in the building below me, and I hoped that meant Edward would also be able to make out the thoughts more clearly.

I looked over at him enquiringly and he raised his finger to his lips as he winked at me. We were both crouched low instinctively; knowing that we were close to a potential threat. I concentrated and searched for any voices or words that I might recognise, after a moment or two I homed in on a voice that I recognised to be detective Drake speaking.

".... without which it's difficult to be certain." Drake's tone sounded nervous, I wondered if that meant Hudson was nearby.

"Did any of the neighbours notice anything unusual?" This was a voice I didn't recognise, it was male and he sounded like a superior to Drake by his tone.

"No, nobody heard or saw anything at all, the car arrived home as usual and then all was quiet."

"Sounds like a plausible theory then. Was there anything in the car?" Drake's superior sounded almost bored by the conversation, I was frustrated not being able to see him as well as hear him. I hoped Edward was getting some good information, as I didn't think I was gleaning an awful lot from this.

I stole a glance at him, he was deep in concentration, but when he saw me look at him his hand stole out and took mine. I wasn't sure if it was for my benefit or for his, but I immediately felt better being connected to him again.

"Car was clean." Drake was still reporting in below, I remembered my drive in Anna Stoker's car on Friday and shivered a little. Edward glanced over at me questioningly and I shook my head at him dismissing it.

"Have you got in touch with them yet?"

Suddenly Edward tensed and I started to ask him why, until I heard the answer below me.

"They're closed today, we're going to drop in and give them a little surprise tomorrow morning. It's just reopened this week, new management by the name of McCarty." My stomach lurched as I realised Drake was talking about Rosalie and Emmett. The trail back to the garage had been followed already.

I realised I hadn't heard Hudson speak yet, I leant into Edward and whispered as quietly as I could possibly manage. "Hudson?"

He nodded at me, and then put his fingers to his lips again.

"What's he doing here?" The other voice was lowered as if speaking to Drake in confidence, but now I was listening to it I could still hear him plainly enough. I wondered if Hudson could too.

"It's the blood thing that's sparked his interest."

"Does he have any insight?"

"He doesn't tell me much to be honest." Drake sounded uncomfortable. I wondered if that was just from talking about Hudson, or if he had any ideas about what insights he might actually have.

"Then I'll ask him, can you tell him to come in." I smiled wryly when I wondered if this other man had met Hudson before. His effect had been the same on all of the humans at the house this morning and I couldn't imagine any of them wanting to speak to him unless they had to.

There were sounds of someone getting up and doors opening, then I heard Drake asking someone to go in and see Cartwright in a very nervous voice. A few moments later I heard the other voice, which I now assumed to be Cartwright, speak again.

"Come in Agent Hudson, please sit down." Cartwright's voice sounded perfectly relaxed, and I started to doubt what I had seen this morning.

"Cartwright." This voice I recognised, and the chill that ran down my spine when I heard Hudson speak made me cling even closer to Edward.

"What-" Cartwright stumbled on his words, and then stopped altogether. I suddenly detected a racing heartbeat which, I couldn't be sure, but I suspected belonged to the formerly arrogant Cartwright.

There were several moments of silence, during which the heart rate increased even faster, I was beginning to wonder if the man was going to have a heart attack when he spoke again.

"What is your purpose here Agent Hudson? If you have no intention of helping this investigation then I don't want you wasting my detective's time." As Cartwright spoke his voice gradually became quieter, until his final words became a whisper.

"I don't think you want to know why I'm here really do you Captain Cartwright?" Hudson sounded cool and calm. There was no threat in his voice so I didn't understand the still manically beating heart.

There was another pause, and then Cartwright spoke again. "No......" His voice was quiet and slightly sleepy. "Please let us know if there's anything you need Agent Hudson." His words became slurred by the end of the sentence. I didn't understand what had just happened, but before I could hear anything else Edward was dragging me across the building, back the way we came.

We leapt across the alleyways again until we reached the building that we had originally climbed up. Edward paced back and forth a dozen times, before he stopped and turned to me.

"We have to leave." He took my hand and started for the fire escape again.

"Hang on, wait Edward." I shook off his hand; I was fed up with being dragged about like a child. "How much do they know? This is a onetime only chance listening in here, let's be sure we know all we need to before we go." I was determined and he saw as much.

"The police don't have a clue. They have had reports from people who saw her car outside the garage, but they also have a sighting of her arriving home so they aren't actually thinking that much of it. Drake wants to speak to Rose or Emmett to see if the woman had said anything to them before she left, mainly because it's the only clue he has." Edward pushed his hand roughly through his hair before he continued.

"That wouldn't be a problem as such, apart from the fact that Hudson will almost certainly go with him, and he will then immediately realise that both Rose and Emmett are vampires. He will then know that there are at least three vampires in the area." His voice was quiet, but it was getting faster and faster as he spoke, something I knew he always did when he was stressed.

"Hudson's thoughts are clouded, I can hear him, but it's hard to pick it all up. I don't think that was true this morning. Your shield seemed to be working against him, he gave no indication he knew we were there, but I'm nervous. Both mine and Alice's abilities are getting twitchy around him so we can't rely on yours completely. His mind is confusing, once or twice just now I had glimpses of things that can't be, that make no sense. I've never seen anything like it, but one thing is certain, I got him wrong this morning." He was pacing again by now, I wanted to stop him and try to calm him down, but I didn't dare, I couldn't remember the last time I saw him so manic.

"He's older than I thought, and more knowledgeable. I still don't know as much as I'd like to though, his mind seems to be full of lies." He grimaced for a moment. "If I didn't know better I'd think he was trying to mask his thoughts."

He was silent for a moment more, and I did not interrupt him. I could see him trying to make sense of everything he'd heard. "He seems to be broadcasting calming thoughts around himself, which is why I thought it was relatively safe to come back. But my instinctive reaction to run this morning was the right one, he is confused about a few facts about us, but he's strong and fast and dangerous."

"He was thinking about this morning, he could sense my direction all the way out to the clearing by the feel of it; I didn't leave his senses until you shielded me later. He was tracking us." He reached out and ran his hands up and down my arms, and I could see something in his eyes that I almost recognised.

"He didn't realise there was anybody else there this morning, so as long as he never meets any of the rest of you you're all safe. I have to run. Now. To keep you safe." He looked down at the ground, away from my gaze.

There was a moment of silence between us as I processed what he was saying to me. _He _had to run. Which meant that _he _would not be with me, and he would be in who knew how much danger being hunted by something neither of us understood. My stomach felt like it dropped to the floor as I slowly digested the thought that I might be about to lose him. My mouth ran completely dry as my throat worked trying to reply to him.

"Edward don't be ridiculous, I will not allow it" I was surprised by how calm and rational my voice sounded, considering the fact that inside my head I was busy going to pieces.

"He has me in his head somehow Bella, I don't know how great a distance that works over, but it's far greater than that which I can read minds over, so he has the element of surprise. Plus, I almost get the feeling his mind is closing itself to me. You all have to go one way, I'll go the other. He'll follow me...." He took my hands and shook them. "Bella, I mean it, there's no other way."

"No." I could feel the ancient hole in my chest opening up again. My breathing became shallower suddenly and I started to feel like I was gasping. I tried to swallow but it got caught in my throat.

"I must. Take the car Bella, go home, take them away go back to Denali." His eyes were empty and he was focussing about 2 inches below mine. As I watched his heart begin to break I found my voice again.

"No. No. NO. NO. NO. NO. I will not go. I will not leave you here. We don't know what this Hunter is capable of. NO!" I was gasping for breath and I was shaking hard now. I shook his hands away from mine and grabbed his face between them, forcing him to look at me.

"Bella-" He began, but I was having none of it.

"NO Edward! This is ridiculous, this is just one person, we are eight. We can deal with this, would you really leave all of us? Would you leave me?" My voice broke as I finished. I was trying my best to talk him out of going, but the thought of it had already weakened me.

"And if he catches up with us, and Ness is there?"

"He won't. We will go a long way away; maybe take Ness to London, like we said." I tried to argue, but he had hit upon my Achilles heel. How on earth could I put Ness at risk? Our careless daydreams of running away together like teenagers suddenly felt ominous. A phrase my grandmother used to use sprang to mind; be careful what you wish for, as you might just get it.

"You know I can't risk her. Or you." He leant in suddenly and kissed me urgently. The kiss was for him, desperately trying to do what he felt he must, while at the same time just as desperately trying to think of a way not to. He pulled me close to him and ran both of his hands down the length of my body to my hips, pulling every inch of our bodies tightly together. I gasped as I threw my arms around his shoulders and kissed him back, frantically trying to hold him to me so that he couldn't leave. I could feel him clinging to me in the same way, while trying so hard to find the resolve to do what he thought was right. In that moment I knew I could win this argument.

"We have to get back to the family." I had pulled away from him, without letting go; I could not relinquish my grasp on him for a second. I knew that I had to get him back to Carlisle; somehow everything would be ok as long as I could get us home.

"No Bella, I have to go now." He was pulling away from me, but I grabbed him tight and pulled him back.

"We don't even know what he's capable of; this might be a complete overreaction. As far as we know he might be planning on coming at us with a sharp wooden stick!"

"He knows how, I saw it. And he's strong, maybe as strong as one of us. If you don't want us to kill him, I have to run." He was still leaning away, but I could feel the reluctance stealing over him.

"I won't let you go; I can't survive without you Edward."

"Bella, you promised me."

My mind railed against what I was going to say next, but I knew I would not survive losing him. "We'll run, but if it comes to it we'll do whatever we need to."

"No Bella, that's not you. I can't let you do that for me." He was standing before me and I could still see his heart breaking before my eyes.

My calm finally broke and I screamed at him in frustration. I wished to God that just this one time I could be allowed tears to cry at that moment. "It's not for you it's for me. God damn you Edward, I cannot survive you leaving me. I would die. Do you understand me, I WOULD DIE!" My words had been garbled and spat out between my sobs, but now I couldn't even manage that anymore as I collapsed against him.

"Shit. What a mess." He spoke into my hair as he pulled me to him. I could feel his phone going off in his pocket at that moment, and I silently hoped that Alice would be able to convince Edward to come back home with me.

Suddenly I heard a soft thud as someone else landed on the rooftop.

"Indeed." The Hunter's voice was quiet as he circled us and came to a halt behind me.

**A/N – Apologies for the longer than usual wait for this chapter, it's been a tough week! Things are getting back to normal now though, so hopefully I should be able to update a bit more on the usual schedule. In fact the next chapter "Hudson" is already written and just waiting for me to edit it! **

**Thank you to everybody who has left a review, I do try and reply, but I've lost track of where I was so I'm sorry if I missed you. **

**Read & Review - it's a revolution!**


	17. Hudson

**Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight!**

"Vampire." Hudson nodded to Edward in mock courtesy. "And Mrs Vampire too, how charming." I noticed that the Hunter spoke with an English accent and I was surprised to find that I found his voice rather beautiful.

Edward pulled me behind him so that my body was shielded by his. He descended into a defensive crouch and gave a long low growl of warning at the Hunter, who began to circle us again slowly. I too descended into a crouch, but because it seemed appropriate rather than because I felt under any particular threat. Despite the obvious danger before me, I felt completely calm. None of my natural instincts seemed to be kicking in and I wondered if the man before us wasn't actually much less of a danger than we had perceived.

Nobody spoke for several moments; the only sounds were Edward's continued growl and the crunching of the Hunter's footsteps on the gravel of the rooftop. I could sense rather than see Edward desperately searching for an escape route, but the Hunter was blocking our way at every turn. Moving as fast as a vampire, he matched Edward move for move, effectively trapping us.

Gradually I found myself rising out of my defensive crouch. I couldn't help myself; without the feeling of any kind of threat I couldn't artificially make myself defend. I wondered to myself why Edward didn't feel the same way as me.

I assessed the situation; Hudson was still circling, but had made no move to attack. I decided that maybe we should try and engage him in conversation and explain the situation. He appeared to be perfectly harmless up close. His thin face was unsmiling, but it was soft and radiated calm.

"It wasn't us." I could hear the urgency in my voice as I tried to convey our innocence in more than words alone; I was determined to make this man understand the truth. "The woman who was murdered, it wasn't us."

The Hunter gazed at me, unspeaking, but he stopped his circling of us and relaxed his stance a little.

"I understand that must be difficult for you to believe." I was still cautious, but I couldn't help the optimism that was creeping over me.

"Really?" The Hunter's eyes stayed on me and caught me in a penetrating stare.

"We weren't there, it wasn't us." Now I was getting into this conversation I wasn't quite sure what to say to the creature before me, I could hardly tell him who the guilty party actually was. However I gradually found myself relaxing under his gaze, there was no aggression or threat in his countenance and I began to doubt Edward's worries about him.

"I believe you. I'm sure you would never dream of hurting an innocent woman would you?" Hudson's tone was soft, soothing and melodic. His eyes were wide and he smiled, suddenly making me feel quite peaceful. I wondered again why we had been so worried about him.

"Bella!" Edward's voice sounded concerned, I glanced at him and smiled, trying to reassure him that I knew what I was doing.

"No we wouldn't, we're vegetarians." I smiled back at him as I told him our in joke, his smile widened and I thought he seemed to understand what I was telling him.

"Of course you are, it's nothing but soy milk and tofu for you two is it?" His voice grew even softer and he smiled his lovely genuine smile again. I wondered if I should walk towards him.

"Exactly." I didn't feel the need to elaborate further; he seemed to understand what I was saying to him. I thought about telling him about how much I also loved ratatouille, but it didn't seem to matter. I wondered to myself why I hadn't made it for so long.

"Bella......" Edward was speaking but I couldn't really hear him. I was having such a nice conversation with Hudson that I was sure it wasn't that important.

"Bella, would you like to come nearer to me so we can talk some more? I'd love to hear more about you." Hudson sounded so young I couldn't believe we had been worried about him. He seemed so nice I just wanted to go over and give him a big hug.

"BELLA!" Suddenly Edward grabbed me and slapped me hard across the face.

"Ow...." I fell against his arm when he hit me, the world was spinning and I couldn't quite work out where I was. "You....... hit......... me?" I was struggling to get any words out; I could hardly remember my own name and everything around me was taking on the feeling of a dream.

"Bella, do not to look at him, he's trying to confuse you." Edward shook me again, trying to catch my eye as he spoke to me. I could hear him, but it was like he was behind a glass screen, muffled and far away.

He held onto me tightly, but I felt rather groggy. I tried to take a step away, but then I found myself sitting down, I needed a bit of a rest. "I'm tired Edward." I mumbled as I slid to the ground in a confused state.

I lay back on the floor and gazed up into the sky; I studied the clouds above my head and daydreamed about the sun. It felt like a long time since I'd been really warm and I wished that the sun would come out right now and warm me. I could hear what was going on around me, but I was sure I must be dreaming. I suddenly wondered if I was asleep, and I relaxed when I realised that I must be.

I could hear a growling sound coming from somewhere, but it was so loud it had to be from a very large animal. There were two men standing together to one side of me, I vaguely recognised one of them, but the other blond man was unfamiliar. The man that I recognised was keeping himself between me and the blond one as they moved, I thought for a moment I could remember his name, but then it was gone. I realised that they were both no more than boys who looked like they were about to have a fight. I tried to tell them to stop, but I couldn't remember how to speak. I watched them doing a slow dance with each other, moving from side to side, before one spoke.

"Get out of my wife's head! What are you doing to her?" Edward took a step towards Hudson then let a terrible snarl rip through his chest.

"Nothing Edward, doesn't it look nice lying down on the floor? Wouldn't you like a rest too? You must have had a long day." The Hunter smiled at Edward and his tone was calming.

"That's not going to work on me Hudson, I can hear what you're doing to her and it won't work on me. Stop it now or I _will_ kill you."

"Nice threats vampire, but I don't think you even know what you're up against, do you?" Hudson's tone had changed. Realising Edward's mind seemed to be different than a normal vampire's all pretence left him. He glowered at Edward with hatred as he spat his words at him.

"I have my suspicions. I know that you think destroying us here today is the right thing."

"I will not allow you to murder another innocent to satiate your disgusting thirst you vile creature." Hudson's words came out as a growl, he was trembling with anger and had sunk lower; ready to attack.

"We are different to others of our kind. Neither of us drink human blood; we survive only on the blood of animals. That is why our eyes are yellow; ask yourself, have you ever seen a vampire with yellow eyes before?" Edward had stood up straighter, trying to defuse the animosity in the atmosphere.

The Hunter's eyes narrowed at Edward, he did not change his position, but he also did not immediately attack.

"My wife has never harmed a human in her life, she is truly an innocent." Edward took his opportunity and tried to further defend us, but his omission of his own innocence was not missed by the Hunter.

"And you Vampire, are you an innocent also?" the Hunter paused for a moment and raised an eyebrow. When Edward did not respond he continued "I thought not. I can sense the guilt that surrounds you. Who killed Anna Stoker then, why are you watching her house?"

"Nomads...." Edward started to lie, but he stopped almost immediately.

"Lies! They echo with deceit!" Hudson bellowed in fury, the lie seeming to decide him of Edward's guilt.

The change in the Hunter's countenance had seemed to shift something in my mind; I could suddenly register what was happening before me, as my brain clicked back into gear. Edward and the Hunter were still circling as they spoke, but I could now see them for what they were; Vampire and Hunter, my husband and real danger. I struggled to sit up but found that though my mind was coming back to its senses, my body was still trying to remember how it worked.

As I watched, the Hunter suddenly sprang at Edward and they tumbled across the roof at an inhuman speed. There was a screeching and tearing sound for a moment before they separated; Edward bouncing across the roof and crashing against a wall in an explosion of bricks and dust. He didn't move for a moment as the Hunter stalked towards him with his teeth bared.

I struggled to make myself move. I could hardly lift my head, but that was enough to see Edward jump to his feet before the Hunter reached him. This time he attacked first, leaping at the Hunter with a terrifying snarl. As they fought they flew out of my line of sight again, and I had to struggle to move my head to follow them. I found that this time I could move slightly more easily, and I began to try and get my limbs to wake up.

Edward and the Hunter fought without breaking apart again, but every now and then I heard a rip or a tearing sound that terrified me beyond reason. When I caught sight of Edward for a second I could see that he was hurt. His shirt and jacket were torn to shreds, and I could see marks and gouges down his chest and across one of his shoulders. His throat had several marks on it and his beautiful face looked battered. The Hunter was clearly not a vampire, but possessed the speed and strength of one; he also seemed to be fighting with his teeth. In the moments that I could see him clearly, he did not seem to be injured at all.

Agony welled up inside me as I realised that Edward was losing, and that thought was enough to get me to my feet. The fight between them had in fact only been going on for a minute or two, but the destruction of the rooftop we were standing on was absolute. The inhuman noises coming from both of them were bouncing off of the surrounding buildings and the noise was overwhelming.

As I watched I saw Edward bounce away from the Hunter again and land against a heating vent with a groan of pain. I realised that he was only still fighting as he couldn't leave me in my prone state, but was unable to get to me to carry me away. He was being hurt because of me; I had to get moving so as both of us could escape.

Willing myself to shake off whatever stupor I had been in I forced my body to take a step, then another. Over a period of a few seconds I felt my mental shackles fall away and I knew that I would be able to run.

I could sense that Hudson still had some kind of hold on my mind. Even with the fight going on before me, and Edward visibly injured, my mind still refused to believe that there was any danger. I realised I had to get away from here, and get Edward away from here, while we possibly could.

Neither Edward nor the Hunter had seemed to notice my recovery as they continued to fight. I recognised Edward's snarls coming thick and fast, but there was also another more guttural roar coming intermittently which I didn't recognise and assumed to be the Hunter. I was nowhere near as strong as Edward, and didn't want to risk him by getting in the way of the fight and making him do anything stupid trying to protect me. At the same time I realised that I had to get him away now, I could see that there was a real danger he could lose.

In that instant my chance came. Again there was a horrendous screeching and ripping sound, and then Edward soared into the air before crashing down to the rooftop again, causing the building beneath us to quake. The rooftop had given way under him as he fell, and he was lying prostrate in a crater not ten feet from me. The Hunter was standing on the side of the building furthest from us. When he looked up and saw me his face clouded into a frown.

Before he could move I flew towards Edward, grabbing him and without stopping dragged him over the edge of the building. The momentum we'd gained as I threw us from the roof took us across the street and we bounced off of the front of the opposing building in an explosion of glass, as we fell the twenty odd stories to the ground. There was a cacophony of screams from below, I had dragged us off of the building over the side facing onto the street, and when we had hit the opposing building the pedestrians below had started to register what was happening.

Still trying to hold onto Edward, I landed awkwardly moments later, both of us hitting the street on our backs, causing the ground to shudder beneath us.

"Edward-" I had started while we were falling, terrified of how badly hurt he may be. I'd never seen an injured vampire before and I didn't know what I needed to do. I wished with all of my strength that Carlisle was here, and I began to wonder if I would be able to outrun the Hunter carrying Edward if needs be.

"I'm ok Love." He managed as we landed, I heard the wind being knocked out of him and he had to pause to catch his breath before he could speak again. "Run."

Relief rushed through me as I heard his voice. I could see he had been hurt, but for now I knew that our main concern had to be escape. We were surrounded by people and in the distance I could hear the wail of sirens approaching us. Without pausing we leapt to our feet and broke into a run. There were more screams as we flew past the human pedestrians around us, unable to do anything but run as fast as we could to escape the immediate danger behind us. Within a couple of hundred yards we were able to escape down a different alleyway towards the car, but the damage was done. I could hear people behind us still screaming and shouting about our completely exposed daylight fall and run.

"Is he following us Edward?" We hadn't spoken as we'd run as fast as we could down the street, but Edward had not slowed his pace at all so I had assumed that Hudson was in hot pursuit.

"Yes, he's on the rooftops so not hindered by whether or not he's seen." Edward looked badly beaten, I could see injuries all over his torso and face and if I could have I would have wept. He also seemed to be running more slowly than usual and I worried that Hudson might be gaining on us.

"Where is he?"

"I'm not sure, he knows I can read his mind and he's trying to confuse me, sending me all sorts of different thoughts." He glanced at me as we ran "Are you ok?"

"I should be the one asking you that!" I huffed at him while internally I was praying that we could just escape so that I could tend to his wounds. I felt a physical ache seeing him hurt, I'd never had to worry about him like this before and I felt useless.

"I will be. It looks worse than it is." He still seemed to be limping, but I hoped he was telling me the truth. "I can't believe you managed to get up, are you ok?" He sounded frustrated, more worried about me than himself as usual.

"I don't know." I answered honestly, "How did he know we were there?" I was sure I had not dropped my shield at all, so I couldn't understand how the Hunter had found us on the rooftop.

"I think he gets used to our abilities, they kind of wear off on him. Your shield isn't working on him at all now Love, how else do you think he managed to do that to you?"

I remembered the bizarre feelings I had just suffered on the rooftop, and realised that they could only have existed in my mind. I suddenly felt completely exposed, knowing that my shield was useless against this man. "Oh god, what do we do?"

"Run, our only chance is to get to the car, I'll phone the family once it's safe." His face furrowed into a frown, I could see he didn't know quite how we were going to make ourselves safe against this creature.

We managed to make it to the car without being seen again; as we scrambled in I sensed rather than heard the Hunter hit the ground behind us. Without a second glance Edward pulled away and we were heading away from him at top speed.

"What did he do to me Edward?" It was only now we were in the comparative safety of our own car that I felt able to ask him this, the feelings that had come over me had been so bizarre it was like my mind had been hijacked.

"He has some kind of mind control talent. It doesn't work on me as I can see in his mind what he's trying to do, but he's gradually closing himself off to me. Once he's successfully done that I think I may be as susceptible to it as you are." He grimaced.

I felt my heart sink when he said this. My mind had been so completely taken over by Hudson, gradually and in a way that gave me no warning as to what was happening, that I saw no way of fighting him. If we met him again and Edward also fell under his spell we would both walk toward him with open arms to meet our fate.

I took moment to study Edward and assess his injuries. I could see a large number of gouges and scrapes down his chest, and several lumps torn from his right shoulder and neck. His face was covered in deep scratches which looked like they had been done by somebody's finger nails. I looked down and I could see that he was driving without making any use at all of his left foot, using his right to pump the clutch as well as brake and accelerate. As I watched I could see some of the smaller scratches already beginning to heal, but my heart ached for the pain he must be feeling. I reached out and stroked his face, trying to soothe him.

"Hmmm. Thank you, Love." He turned to look at me as he leant his face into my hand, I stroked under his eye with my thumb lovingly, wishing that there was more I could do for him.

We drove in silence for a minute, the city flying past us as he ignored every traffic rule in a bid to get us to safety. I continued to stroke his face and neck, running my hand over the scratches, the likes of which I had never seen on my beloved Edward. I trailed my fingers down his chest and traced the gouges which were healing more slowly than the scratches on his face. I touched a particularly large gouge and he winced under my hand.

"Sorry." I went to pull my hand away from him but he caught it and held it back against himself.

"Don't stop, it's helping." He smiled as I carried on stroking my fingers up and down his chest again. "What was it like?" He whispered and I could hear worry in his voice.

"It's difficult to explain, I didn't realise anything was wrong at all. It was so strange; do you know I'd forgotten that I was a vampire? I didn't even know who you were!" The idea of not knowing Edward was so alien to me that the idea was almost funny.

"I could see through his mind what he was doing to you. It's an incredibly powerful gift, he bewitches his enemies into thinking he's harmless, and then makes them forget themselves, finally even taking the ability to move from them. It happens gradually so as there's nothing to alarm the victim until it's too late, then once they are completely powerless he can destroy them. Add to that the fact that he is easily as strong as me, probably stronger, we have a very powerful enemy." Edward suddenly glanced into the rear-view mirror.

At the same time I had heard the familiar rumble of a powerful motorbike, I turned and was unsurprised to see the Hunter appear in the distance behind us. We were still in central Calgary, negotiating the busy city streets, and he kept his distance, shadowing us with ease as we drove at a breakneck pace.

"There's no way we can outrun him on that." Edward glanced over at me, his face dark.

"Edward, what do we do?" I could feel terror creeping into my veins, whether we could outrun him or not, how could we escape from a creature who could track us so easily?

Before he could reply a yellow Porsche 911 Turbo screamed up alongside and then pulled in front of us in one swift movement. Cars on the other side of the road had had to swerve out of the way, and I knew only one person would dare to make such a manoeuvre in the middle of the busy city. I saw both Alice and Jasper in the car and I whooped in relief as Alice grinned and waved at me from the driver's seat.

I turned around in my seat again, to be confronted by Emmett waving and grinning at me from the front passenger seat of Rosalie's brand new black BMW Z4 convertible, with Rosalie smiling with somewhat less glee in the driver's seat.

Edward gave a giddy laugh for a second "It seems the Cavalry's here."

The rumble of the Hunter's motorbike vanished into the distance just as suddenly as it arrived, clearly not fancying the odds so much as before. I allowed myself to be relieved for a moment; I silently thanked God that we were now six instead of two. I didn't allow myself to wonder whether that would actually make a difference against a creature as strong as Hudson.

**A/N – I hope that was worth the wait, let me know...... I have had The Resistance by Muse on virtually incessantly while I've been writing this, if you haven't bought it yet do, it's truly brilliant!**

**Read & Review – it's a revolution!**


	18. Flight

I don't own Twilight!

Thanks to venomaddict for beta-ing this.

My relief at the arrival of our brothers and sisters was immense. I sat back in my seat, closed my eyes and tried to collect myself. I tried to decide whether my mind was completely my own now, but I couldn't come to any conclusion, however hard I tried. I had been so completely controlled by Hudson that I no longer knew my own mind for certain. I ran through every moment of our confrontation and realised I couldn't even be sure at what point my mind had ceased to be my own. From the very moment I was in the Hunter's presence I had felt an unnatural serenity, as if he exuded it from every pore.

Now I realised that that must have been false, I wondered what else about him was a deception. He surrounded himself with comforting feelings and images, making him appear safe, small, and even helpless. Was this in fact part of his gift? In the way our prey found the vampire that hunted them beautiful, did his prey find him...... safe?

_Safe. More than that even, he was comforting. _

I considered Edward's reaction to the Hunter for a few moments. After our first encounter with him Edward had been panicked beyond reason, dragging me across country for miles in an effort to confuse the Hunter he believed was pursuing us. However his assessment was still that the Hunter posed no serious threat to us, leading to our regrettable second encounter this afternoon. The two reactions seemed to be conflicting, was Edward only partly immune to the Hunter's mind control? Enough to instinctively see the threat, but still deceived to a degree which allowed him to believe the lie, that the Hunter was not dangerous?

I was certain that the key to defeating the Hunter had to be understanding where this line was drawn. My own instincts had been absolutely overridden by the Hunter. I had not perceived him as a threat even when he was attempting to kill Edward, even when he was attempting to destroy the very thing that anchored me in this world. Would that still happen if I saw him again? Could my rational mind overrule the deception, or would I lie down on the ground, to take a nap while I burned?

_Would I even feel the flames? _

I wondered why our gifts seemed to be becoming unpredictable against the Hunter as time wore on. Alice must have seen that we were in danger for them to have come to our rescue, but why could she suddenly be able see us around the Hunter, despite the fact she had never actually been in his presence? How could he so quickly overcome my shield, something not even the most powerful vampires could circumvent? And how was he able to begin to block his mind to Edward? Was this all something he was doing consciously, or was it unconscious? Could we work around it? Could I manipulate my shield around him and protect myself again, maybe even the others as well?

The others! A wave of horror crashed over me as I realised what must now happen. The Hunter must surely have all of us in his mind in the way he previously had Edward, and I believed he would not stop until either he or us were destroyed. It left us few options. We could not run as he would simply find us. We would not be able to rejoin with Ness until he was no longer a threat. So we had no choice but to destroy him.

What would that make us then? The Hunter, Agent Hudson I corrected myself, is clearly not evil as such. His only goal here was to destroy a creature that had murdered and fed upon an innocent woman. He surely saw his part as no more than destroying a rabid animal. How could I condemn that?

Agent Hudson had no way of knowing that we did not drink human blood, that we were _not _murderers despite what we were. The fact that Emmett had, in fact, committed the murder in question did not make things easier. How could we justify that?

_Hey, we don't kill people, so let us live. Ooh yes, apart from her, but she just smelled too good. Sorry about that......_

No. Not sure he'd go for that actually.

But how many lives had Hudson saved? How many vampires had he destroyed? Vampires which would have gone on to kill any number of people over their immortal lives had he not cut them short?

Even now, knowing that he would kill all of us if we allowed him to, maybe even if we tried to prevent it, I could not bring myself to plan his death. Could I allow my family, _Edward, _to plot his murder?

I considered this, and realised I could not. I had faith that Edward had a soul. He was truly the best person I had ever known; striving to be good whatever this existence had thrown at him. I believed that he was destined for heaven and I could not, would not, risk that. But he would for me. So what options did I have? I loved Edward more than my own life.

_**More than my own life**__. What does that mean? What would I do to protect him from himself? I cannot allow him to risk his soul. Dear God, what do I do?_

"Love? BELLA? What's the matter?" Edward broke into my train of thought and I realised the others were trying to talk to me from the other cars.

"I-" I paused, I went back to my original consideration and realised I had not managed to answer my very first question.

_Is my mind completely my own again? _

"I'm not sure I'm really me again. I think I am, but I'm not sure."

He looked over at me and I could see realisation hit him. "Oh God. Why didn't I think of that?" I could see he was mentally scolding himself and I reached out to him to soothe him.

"Edward, he had such absolute power over me, it was frightening. I just need some time to regroup I think." I couldn't stop wondering; what if he still had a level of control over me? Could I now be a threat to everyone else? I probed my mind again, I felt normal, but I couldn't trust my own decisions. I could feel panic bubbling up in my chest, before a sudden unnatural calm came over me.

"We have to stop." Jasper said from in front of us.

"I need gas anyway." said Edward, "Let's pull over at the next rest stop."

While I had been debating with myself internally we had made it onto the Interstate. I looked at the clock and realised I had lost twenty minutes somewhere along the way, and that only added to my worries.

Ten minutes later we pulled off of the Interstate in a convoy and pulled into the car-park of some services. We had all been quiet in the meantime. Edward suddenly sharing my fears, glanced at me every few seconds as if I was about to lose it again, and everyone else just waited to hear what had happened to us face to face.

We pulled in and parked in three parking spaces lined up together. Everybody was out of the cars in an instant, and we were buried in an orgy of arms reaching out for us. For the second time that day I was intensely relieved that we were back in the embrace of our family. While they bustled around us, I grabbed hold of Edward and held him to me tightly. This was the first real chance I'd had since we had escaped the Hunter. I ran my hands up and down over his body, feeling the knot in my stomach slowly unwind as I confirmed that he really was ok.

He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me into his chest, and as I breathed him in I could no longer hold back the sobs which wracked my body. He buried his face in my neck and we stood like this for several minutes, surrounded by our family, neither of us daring to voice what could have just happened.

"What the hell happened to you Bro?" Emmett was the first to speak, after the initial gaggle of relief was over. "I've never seen anything like it." He spoke in a whisper. He reached out as if to touch Edward's injured shoulder, before Edward glared at him and he thought better of it.

"The Hunter is much, _much _more powerful than I had even imagined. We were lucky to get away." Edward was thoughtfully stroking his shoulder himself now, no doubt examining his wounds.

"The Hunter did this?" Alice spoke quietly, I was surprised to hear relief in her voice, I wondered what on earth she had thought had happened.

I was surprised when Edward suddenly laughed a booming laugh, people around us turning in his direction looking for its source. "Yes, he did. Now, let's get inside and talk, we're drawing attention here." He was looking at Alice who was also smiling as they shared something none of the rest of us could hear.

I looked around and saw several of our fellow travellers watching us with curiosity; I looked at Edward's extremely battered appearance and understood why. I reached out and stroked his face again, the scratches were mostly gone now, but I could see that many of the worst injuries would take longer to heal. He took my hand and kissed it, as we all walked towards the large diner attached to the services.

As we walked into the diner, Edward vanished for a few moments while Emmett and Jasper went to buy coffee and pastries for us to use as props while we spoke. Alice, Rosalie and I found a table on the far side of the room; it was mid afternoon on a Sunday and the diner was relatively quiet with lunch now long past.

Before any of us had even sat down I had to speak "Where's Ness? She's not nearby is she?" I was terrified that she may be near enough for the Hunter to have sensed her as well as the rest of us. I looked at Rosalie, remembering that I had left my daughter in her care.

"No, she's miles away by now Bella." Rosalie looked as relieved as I felt as she sat down. "Carlisle was taking her and Esme to Denali when we left to come for you; he's planning on coming back once he knows they are safe."

"He shouldn't, Hudson will know he exists then too. Oh crap....." My head sank into my hands as I remembered the fact that it was most likely that the Hunter now had all six of us on his radar. "He must know about you guys as well now."

"It's ok Bella, there are six of us and one of him. He won't trouble us now....." Rosalie trailed off when both Alice and I looked at her meaningfully.

At that moment Edward slid into the chair beside me. He had clearly found somewhere to buy some clothes and he looked much less alarming in a tight grey T shirt with a maple leaf on the front of it. I couldn't help but admire how the material clung to his prominent musculature, but I resisted the temptation to put my hand out to stroke his stomach. He caught my eye, and again I was sure he could read my mind, he raised an eyebrow at me and grinned as I grinned back sheepishly.

We were distracted from our little exchange by Emmett and Jasper arriving with trays laden down with coffee and cakes.

As they set them down Emmett cleared his throat.

"So bro, are we to understand that the serious ass-wupping Alice saw you receiving earlier was _not_, in fact, from Bella?" Emmett was grinning at us both, but I could see the worry still in his eyes when he looked at Edward.

"WHAT?!" I looked at Emmett in horror as he raised his hands towards me defensively.

"Don't blame me, blame the pixie!" He looked at Alice who was wearing a somewhat shamefaced expression.

Edward was laughing beside me, as were Jasper and Rosalie, but I still didn't understand what they were talking about.

"I saw you and Edward were in trouble Bella, but my vision wasn't very.... clear." Alice was still looking embarrassed, but Edward only began to laugh harder. I was beginning to wonder if he was hysterical.

"It's ok Love, I'm ok." He saw my expression and reined in his laughter "Alice saw what happened, but it seems the Hunter is now completely invisible to her, he doesn't even leave a blank spot in the vision anymore. It's as if he wasn't even there."

I frowned at him for a moment "Why does that make for all the laughter? We were just in a life or death situation you know!"

"I know, but in Alice's head, by the time she saw me hit you and then me being beaten up, then you out on the floor, it does look remarkably like _we _were fighting." He was still suppressing a smile, but his eyes were serious.

"Oh. OH! So were you all racing up here to save us from each other?" I looked at Alice, who was busy picking a Danish to tiny pieces.

"No, I had assumed that there was something wrong in my vision so we came as I knew that you must be in danger, but once I told Emmett exactly what I saw, well...." Alice shrugged her shoulders.

"I couldn't wait to get up here and see if it was true!" Emmett was grinning at me again, but at that moment I really wasn't in the mood.

"Edward, tell us what happened." Jasper was clearly also tiring of Emmett's amusement. His nostrils flared as he glared at him for a moment, and then Emmett visibly deflated, all traces of good humour gone.

"Geez, thanks a lot Jazz, now I feel like my puppy just died."

"Be quiet Emmett. Unless you want me to make you cry?" Jasper was still scowling; I shared his irritation at that particular moment. "Edward?"

"We went and listened to the Police and the Hunter at the Police HQ. We have no problems with the authorities, there are no clues to link us to this. That's bye the bye now though." Edward sighed and I could see how very weary he was.

"I was listening to the Hunter's thoughts most of the time. At first they were much the same as the last time, but then I could make out something else underneath them. His mind is like....." He paused lost in thought for a moment. "......like an onion. His mind is full of layers, the top layer projecting thoughts into the minds of those around him. I'm not sure if it's deliberate or not, but he projects thoughts and feelings towards people, making them think and feel the way that is most helpful to him. He projects fear at humans mostly, I assume to keep them out of his way."

"I would understand that." Jasper grinned "Many relationships with humans work best if they are afraid of you, tends to expedite the process, if y'know what I mean."

"Towards our kind he makes himself appear unthreatening, to keep us from running or defending ourselves. Then once he can get close to a vampire his mind consciously breaks them down until they don't know themselves." Edward related exactly what had happened to me. It was scary hearing it from his point of view. He had not realised at first what was happening to me, and by the time he did, I had been lost to him. While he spoke he reached out and took my hand firmly, I think reassuring himself that I was still there.

When he finished there was silence for a moment until Jasper spoke quietly. "Carlisle spoke to Tanya before we left. She has heard of the Demon Hunters before."

"What did she say?" Edward sat forward in his chair.

"Not much. She was going to speak to some others and try to ascertain some more details before Carlisle arrives. She had thought that they no longer existed." Jasper paused for a beat before continuing. "The Volturi spent centuries trying to wipe them out, before Carlisle's time even."

There was silence around the table. The last thing we needed was a reason for the Volturi to pay a visit to anywhere we were, whether it was for us or not.

"Did she know anything else about them, the Hunters that is?"

"Nothing that you don't already know from personal experience by now. Strong, fast, usually very gifted. Dangerous." Jasper was also picking a small cake to bits. I was sure he must have been dealing with a lot of very panicky emotions at that moment and I purposely calmed myself. He glanced at me and winked in silent thanks.

I took my chance to speak to him. "Jasper, can you sense anything _unusual _coming from me at the moment? Any unusual emotions, do I feel like...... me?" I hoped fervently that he would be able to help me work out if I was fully in control of myself.

Jasper sat quietly contemplating me for several minutes. I felt quite embarrassed as he gazed at me unflinchingly, assessing me as the rest of our family watched.

"You feel like you to me, Bella honey."

I sighed with relief, I was beginning to feel like me to me as well, but it was nice to have an outside opinion.

"So what now?" Emmett looked keyed up, and I supposed he was probably disappointed to have missed the biggest fight we had seen in a long while.

"I think we need to keep running for now." Edward still looked weary, and I wondered how much pain he was actually in.

"I agree." Jasper leant forward, and as the most experienced in battle we all paid attention when he spoke. "We need to see Carlisle and find out as much as we can about the Hunter before we confront him again. We need to regroup and Edward and Bella both look like they need some recovery time to me. We must be certain before we confront him again that we know what we're up against, as there is no doubt in my mind that this is not over."

"Carlisle suggested that we all meet up again at the place in Montana, but it's a long time since we've used it; it will most likely be a wreck by now, if it's there at all." Jasper concluded.

"It's there." Edward's voice was dull; I didn't remember ever being to Montana with him so I wondered when he had been there. "I spent some time there a few years ago, when I was away from...... you all."

I realised what he was trying not to say; he spent some time there when he was away from _me. _

"It will only take three or four hours, but Carlisle will most likely not make it for a day or so at least, so maybe....." Jasper was looking at Edward as he drifted off, I could see them having a wordless conversation for a few moments. "We shouldn't spend too long in the same place right now. We should probably head East for now, then approach Montana from the South, and plan to arrive this time tomorrow."

"Yes, we don't know how much time we would have, but we don't want to plan on spending more than a couple of hours there at most, we don't want to give him time to track us there." Edward said.

"Then once we have all of the information we can plan our attack. We need to be sure our execution of the Hunter is swift and as low risk as possible. We don't want another mess like today." Jasper looked over me and Edward frowning slightly.

I had sat quietly throughout this conversation. There was no doubt in anybody's mind of the decision to destroy the Hunter, and with good reason. He would not allow us to escape him, he would track us until either he was dead, or we were dead. We could not even stop and rest for any period of time as it would allow him to catch up with us. The time for negotiation was past. For them.

As my family continued to plan our next journey I drifted away from them mentally. I did not allow myself to plan or decide anything. Nothing firm, nothing concrete. I sat still and tried to look calm. I knew any firm thought or decision on my part would attract Alice's attention, and I could not allow that. My mental control of my shield had made my mind immensely strong, I could think and yet not think in a way that none of the rest of my family was able to. In doing so, I knew that I could deceive Alice, the only one of us who could.

And deceive her I must.

**A/N – I had a little surprise yesterday, it seems that this story has been nominated for an award in the sparkle awards. Thanks very much to whoever did that! Check it out and vote for me if you want to ;). If not still check it out, looked like a good place to find some good new fics if you're ever short of anything to read....**

**Read & Review – it's a revolution!**


	19. Escape

Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight!

Big Thanks go to venomaddict for Beta-ing this for me, and talking me down off the ledge yesterday :).

As we made our way back out to the cars a little while later, I felt myself sag under the weight of the last couple of days. I looked up at Edward and saw in his face the same expression of weariness he had carried for most of the last day. I wrapped him absolutely in my shield and leant myself up against him, enjoying the strength and solidness of him against my arm.

_Edward, do you think Jasper could drive for us? _

He looked down at me and a tiny version of his beautiful smile told me he liked my idea.

"Jasper, hang on." Edward and I caught up to him as he was climbing back into Alice's Porsche. "Would you mind driving the Alfa, both Bella and I need a break."

"Sure, no problem. You need to take the chance while you can." Jasper kissed Alice goodbye, then climbed into the driver's seat of the Alfa.

Edward and I both climbed into the backseat, and wrapped our arms and legs around each other as much as we possibly could in the limited space. After we'd filled up with gas we headed East. We planned on heading towards Winnipeg, before approaching Montana via North Dakota. It felt like we were planning on driving a long way, but Jasper was adamant that we needed to keep moving during the entirety of the next twenty-four hours, and this route ensured we had enough miles to do that before we reached our goal.

We were heading for a house owned by the Cullens in Southern Montana, just to the North of Yellowstone Park. The spot had been one of their favourites for years, with excellent hunting and good weather for vampires. But in recent years it had fallen out of favour and no one but Edward had been to the house, buried deep within the parkland, in twenty years. The plan was to meet there with Carlisle, then head onwards immediately to hunt the Hunter.

Meanwhile though there was nothing to do but drive.

Jasper was in the front seat on his Bluetooth to Alice in her Porsche up ahead. I had given myself some privacy for a few minutes and built up some mental walls around some things I wanted to ensure Edward could not see while he was in my mind. I wasn't sure if he knew that I could do that, I hoped he wouldn't be able to tell.

I wrapped him back into my shield as we hit the interstate and spent a moment just enjoying the feeling. He made a deep sigh beside me and I felt him relax as he enjoyed it too.

_Hello my love, I've missed you._

"Me too." He murmured almost silently, we were not able to keep our conversation from Jasper at this distance if he wanted to hear it, but as he was talking to Alice, I was sure he would be giving us our privacy.

I shuffled round a little in my seat, so that my chin was resting on his chest and I could look up into his beautiful golden eyes. He stroked his thumb across my cheekbone, continuing it around the side of my head until his hand was in my hair. I smiled as he leaned in and brushed his lips gently across mine in a chaste kiss.

_Jasper wouldn't thank us for getting too amorous in here right now I guess._ I grinned playfully at Edward, knowing the answer already.

He pursed his lips at me in a restrained smile and shook his head ever so slightly. I took the hint as Edward shifted again so I was back on his chest looking up at him.

_How are you baby, does it hurt? _The endearment didn't sound weird in my head; although it was something I never called him out loud.

"Surprisingly, it does. Very much so, actually." He scowled "I'm going to have to get Carlisle to have a look at a couple of the bigger bites on my shoulder; they don't feel like they're healing at all."

_Oh darling, I'm sure they are, I'm sure it's just going to take a bit of time. _I very carefully ran my fingers over his hurt shoulder. I managed to avoid telling him that I was pretty sure they weren't healing, as he suspected. I was glad that Carlisle was on his way.

"I thought I was going lose you there for a bit, Love." He closed his eyes and I could see the fear reflected in his face. His lip trembled slightly and I felt his chest quiver beneath me as I rubbed his shoulder, trying to calm him.

"I know. Same here, I haven't ever been as afraid as I was today." I could feel myself blocking out the thoughts of what we had faced, protecting my mind as best I could. I had sobbed tearlessly, until there was nothing left, but when I made myself recall the fight with the Hunter, my fear was still fresh.

"I love you so much; I can't believe I got you into that situation. I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry...." He leant down and started planting kisses into my hair, echoing his apologies every time he did.

"Edward, don't. Vampire now, remember? It's not your job to protect me anymore; I want you to understand that." I sat up and put my finger on his lips, stopping his apologies.

We sat in silence for a moment. I stroked his lips with my fingers, before I ran them across his cheek slowly. I made my way up his face, until my fingers were resting on his cheekbone and I stroked his lips again, this time with my thumb. Our eyes never left each other as I leant in and kissed him gently, our mouths stayed closed, our lips moving gently against each other for a moment.

As we kissed Edward moved his hands to my face, cupping my jaw on both sides. With a soft moan he ran his hands into my hair and pulled my face closer to his, opening his mouth and running his tongue across my bottom lip, begging for entrance.

"Don't make me come back there guys!" Jasper practically yelled from the front seat. "This is not helping me keep my mind on the road!" He turned in his seat and scowled at us, before breaking into a grin.

"Sorry Jasper." I said as I gave him a rueful grin. Edward simply gave a gentle growl as I moved back into my comfortable nook on his chest.

Over the next 24 hours we drove constantly, stopping only for gas. Jasper assured us that while we were moving the Hunter was unlikely to pursue us, and so not only would he stay where we currently knew him to be, but we didn't have to be on the lookout for him.

I was glad of the rest, Edward seemed to be suffering physically and the injuries he had sustained were not recovering as I had expected them to. Mentally he seemed most concerned about the danger that he had exposed me to, and he continued to apologise intermittently throughout our journey.

After a couple of hours on the road I had taken my mind back to myself, claiming to be tired, but in fact I needed time to think privately. I had come to several conclusions about our meeting with the Hunter and I needed to be clear on all of them before we arrived in Montana.

My epiphany had come while we were still in the diner outside of Calgary. My biggest concern had been how the Hunter had managed to bypass my shield. Considering that even some of the most powerful vampires in the world were not immune to it, the thought that it offered no protection against him, had seemed impossible to me. I had thought over what had happened again and again, reliving the entire event in perfect detail at lightning speed, until I pulled myself short.

I reviewed my memory again more slowly, and remembered the obvious. How did the Hunter know we had been on that roof? He did not seem to have any heightened sense of smell, so it could not have been our scent, and we had been _absolutely _silent, so the only explanation must be that he was able to bypass my shield.

I thought about that for a moment. How was that possible? I suddenly remembered that he had not bypassed my shield at all _I had lowered it for him._

I remembered his feel, his calm. I had become so relaxed by the sound of his voice, while he clearly influenced me using his superior abilities, that it had felt natural to lower all my defences. I didn't remember doing it, or deciding to do it, I just remembered that it had felt like a good idea at the time.

And then he had appeared. It just seemed to make sense. Clearly, this must have been what I had done, and what I had allowed.

I looked out of the car window; Edward was gazing at me intently and I didn't want him to realise there was anything going on behind my eyes other than recovering and worrying.

So, now I knew that my shield should still work on the Hunter; once I recognised why it had failed the last time. I then began to wonder; why couldn't Alice see the Hunter? Why is Edward losing the ability to read his mind? Could it actually be that Edward is being convinced somehow that that is the case? The Hunter's abilities seem to be working on our perception of things rather than actually physically doing anything to us.

So, does that mean that he is not actually as strong as he appeared to be? Was Edward deluded into believing he was going to be beaten by the Hunter? If he did not believe that delusion anymore would he in fact be able to defeat him? Not that I could allow him to test my theory. I was not going to let that happen.

I toyed with the idea of talking to Edward about my theories, wondering if maybe he had any more insight for me. Then I realised I could not. If Edward thought my theories may be true, he might try and go back sooner, and I couldn't let him do that.

Suddenly Edward broke into my train of thought. "Are you thinking about the same thing as me?"

"I'm not the mind reader my love, why do you ask?"

"You realise Hudson is likely to not be our only problem in the coming days don't you?"

I knew what he was talking about, but still my stomach gave a little lurch at the thought of it. Our massively public fall from a twenty story building, followed by running at full speed would most likely attract attention from the Volturi sooner rather than later. I groaned as I imagined our pictures being uploaded to Youtube at that very moment.

"I don't think we can think about that right now Edward." I was still hopeful that maybe luck might be on our side this one time.

"It would only be us who were sentenced for this, Love. If it comes to it we could run, just the two of us, as long as you shield me, Demetri will never find us." He looked hopeful as he spoke, hoping that at least this time we would not all have our lives on the line.

I didn't reply. Yes we could run, but how long would it be until we could see our family again? The thought of being kept apart from Ness tugged at my heart, threatening to break it in two.

"It's ok, Love, we'll have time. Alice is watching them for us." Edward started to rub soothing circles between my shoulder blades and I closed my eyes, trying to relax and enjoy these moments before whatever was coming.

When we reached the house in Montana, Carlisle was already there. As we pulled up he was standing in the doorway of the house, a look of grave consternation on his face.

The house was clearly something that Esme had designed, but was now in rather poor shape, not having been lived in for some time. There were several broken windows and as we approached Carlisle I could see light was coming in through the roof, all the way down to the hallway. Before we reached him, Carlisle closed the door to the house and walked to meet us.

"Edward, Bella, thank God." He threw his arms around both of us as we got out of the car. Edward leaned into his father and I broke away to give them a minute. I wanted him to have as much comfort as he could get; I was still worried about his injuries which were still not healing. Jasper was helping Alice out of her Porsche and Emmett and Rosalie were still making their way down the driveway behind us.

"Carlisle, we can't stay here for long. If the Hunter thinks we've settled he will begin the hunt." Jasper began as he made his way over to join us. "We need to know what you know."

"I understand Jasper, I think I have a lot that will help us. Eleazar was involved in the Volturi's hunt for the Hunters, centuries ago. He met many of them and was there when they were destroyed." Carlisle paused as Emmett and Rosalie joined us.

"Can they be destroyed?" Edward said quietly, I glanced at him and was glad to see he looked better for the rest over the last day travelling.

"Oh yes certainly, in fact, they are usually much weaker than us."

"This one is not." Edward was scowling at the memory.

"That is because he was fighting you mentally as well Edward, draining your strength, which is why you most likely feel so exhausted, even now. The Hunters power is all mental. They lure their quarry, convince them of how harmless they are, and sap their strength from them mentally. Each one is different, but fundamentally they share one thing in common. Their biggest strengths are mental, not physical.

"Carlisle, we need to know how to fight this creature. We have already engaged once and things did not go so well..." Jasper glanced towards me and Edward and I felt him prickle by my side, as his pride got the better of him. "This time it needs to be short and sharp, no chance for mistakes."

"Eleazar says that it's all about not allowing them to lure us, once we start to fall under their spell it's inevitable. He says it can be enough to know what they can do, and it's also about numbers, he won't be able to work his spell on all of us at the same time, if there are seven of us against one Hunter it shouldn't be a problem at all."

"Carlisle, first we need to deal with Edward." I spoke quickly as I could see that if this conversation continued as it was, we'd all be in the cars on our way back to Calgary within moments.

"What do you mean, Edward?" Carlisle turned to him, his face full of concern.

"Some of the injuries the Hunter inflicted are not healing as one would expect." Edward pulled at the neck of his shirt, dragging it down to one side, exposing the angry gouges out of his neck and shoulder which had not improved over the last twenty four hours.

Carlisle approached him and examined the injuries, being careful not to touch them as he did. "These must be excruciating Edward. How are you coping?"

I physically jumped at Carlisle's words, I had understood that Edward might be in some pain, but I had clearly not understood how much.

"Not well to be honest Carlisle. I.... I need to work out how to sort this out before we go back, I think." The way his voice broke betrayed his suffering and I felt overwhelmed with guilt that I had not done more to ease his pain.

"It's ok little sis." Jasper leaned over and rested a hand on my shoulder, I felt myself calm at his touch.

"Edward, you need to hunt." Carlisle was also looking sick at the thought of how much Edward must be suffering, I sent as much thankfulness towards Jasper as I could muster for his calming hand. I wasn't sure how much more emotional turmoil I could handle right now. "Injuries this severe will only recover with repeated feeding, we must go now, you certainly can't be involved in any kind of fight in this condition."

"Maybe we should go without Edward and Bella, they've had a rough couple of days and I think it's my turn to get a shot at this Hudson dude." Emmett sounded ready for the fight, but I could not allow what he was suggesting.

"No Emmett, I need to be there." I said firmly. Everybody turned to me in surprise, clearly expecting me to be glad to keep Edward out of the fight.

I continued ignoring them "My shield might well come in handy against him, especially as Carlisle thinks his power is more mental than physical."

"Bella, your shield wasn't working against him so well yesterday afternoon. Maybe you'd be better off here." Alice was the first to voice what everyone was thinking.

"Yeah, um.... about that..." I scratched my head, I realised I was embarrassed to admit what had actually happened. "I've thought about it a lot, and I've realised that he somehow got me to lower my shield to him. He didn't become immune to it as such."

Several jaws dropped around me and I looked down, embarrassed again.

"You're right." Edward said slowly, "I could hear your thoughts while we were on the roof; I'd not really thought about it, I'm getting used to hearing them these days...."

"Great! So we get to sneak up on him after all!" Jasper looked delighted that we seemed to hold the advantage again.

"You dropped your shield to him?" Alice was pondering to herself, "So maybe I'm choosing to not see him, maybe Edward's choosing to not hear his thoughts...."

"Maybe you're right..... only one way to be sure I guess, we need to get back to Calgary...now." Edward suddenly looked revitalised, but I still didn't want everyone to be ready to go now.

"No, wait Edward." I put my hand on his chest stilling him. "You need to hunt; I can't let you go on suffering because of this." I gestured to his shoulder, wincing at the thought. "Let's hunt now. Game must be plentiful around here. _I _need to hunt too, I've had a pretty rough couple of days as well, you know."

I knew I was playing dirty. I also knew that Edward would not allow us to delay getting back for his own needs, but if he thought I was suffering he would concede and give me the time I needed.

"She's right Edward," Carlisle backed me up, "We need you in top form. We think this is going to be easy, but we have to make sure we're at our best. Let's just hunt quickly; it will help for us all to be at our strongest to meet Agent Hudson."

"Very well, but only for a short while. Let's all meet back here in an hour." Edward grabbed my hand and began pulling me towards the forest. "Come on, Love, we should be able to find some mountain lions around here somewhere."

I let him guide me away. As I listened to the rest of the family moving away too, I released my shield, covering each of them as they moved.

Each member of my family showed in my mind like a tiny pinprick of light. I could tell who each light represented by their colour and feel to me. I wasn't sure how big an area I could trace them all over, but I was sure it would be enough for what I needed.

I moved with Edward and I waited. Soon we caught the scent of a mountain lion, and I felt him quiver beside me.

"Go on my love, this one's yours, you need it." I urged him on, away from me.

Wordlessly he crouched down and began the hunt, I knew his mind would be taken up fully by his prey and hoped it would be enough of a distraction for him to not realise where I was going.

In my mind I could see each tiny pinprick of light, all of them a good distance away from the house now.

I crouched myself, as if hunting, and began to make my way back towards the house. I made myself think only of hunting, all the way until I reached the cars.

In my mind I was closely watching the pinkish point of light, which was Alice. I knew that as soon as I decided to carry out my foggiest of plans she would see it. I had only maybe thirty seconds, less if she managed to get someone else to come for me.

Without thinking, I made my move. As quickly as I could I opened the boot of Alice's Porsche, her keys had been in the ignition, as I had hoped. Although the clothes she wore were beautiful, they never had pockets; she claimed they ruined the line of them.

In my mind I saw the pinkish light stop suddenly.

I ran to each of the other cars in turn, ripping out the battery from under the bonnet. I slung the three batteries in the boot of the Porsche and slammed the door.

I could clearly see in my mind, that the pinkish light was hurtling towards the house at top speed. I could hear her now as well, she was screaming at me, "Bella, NO........."

I jumped in the Porsche and pulled away, screaming through the gears as quickly as I could, knowing that I had only seconds to get away, and that if anyone managed to catch the car they would not hesitate to flip it over in their efforts to stop me.

My attention was suddenly on the golden light. Edward. He was now moving back towards the house, much faster than even Alice could go. I cussed under my breath, and I knew that this was going to be close.

I flew down the long driveway as fast as I could over the rutted gravel. I saw a movement in the mirror out of the corner of my eye. Glancing up I saw Edward, head down, barrelling towards the back of the car.

Just as he was about to catch me I hit the main road, and was finally able to get the car up to its full speed. Edward began to fall back and I knew I was away. Before he was out of hearing I wrapped my shield around him to allow him to hear me.

_I promise it'll be alright my love. I love you too much to do anything but this. _

I saw his shoulders slump as he heard me, and as I accelerated away from him I saw him drop to his knees in despair.

I pressed the accelerator pedal into the floor. I knew that despite my efforts it wouldn't take Edward long to find a car, so my time was short.

All I need is fifteen minutes God.

**A/N – Ok, I'm going to be honest here, I got 2 reviews for my last chapter, and I found it disheartening! I didn't realise what a review whore I was, but now I recognise it I beg you to feed my addiction. If I think people are interested, it's much easier to write.... ok, end of guilt trip!**

**Make me happy and press the green button, as a favour to you all if we reach 100+ reviews for the next chapter I **_**won't let **_**Hudson finish off any of our intrepid Cullens......**


	20. A Losing Battle

Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight!

Hurtling towards Calgary at more than twice the speed limit, I knew that I could make it to where I needed to be in less than two hours. This meant that, if my timing was right, I could reach Calgary Police HQ for 5.30pm Monday afternoon.

Whoever I was these days, I was still Bella Swan, a cops daughter, and that meant I knew a thing or two. This included the fact that at 5.30pm on a Monday afternoon pretty much every cop in Calgary was likely to be in the office, filling out paperwork for the end of the day shift. Charlie always joked that if ever he needed to turn to a life of crime he would only ever strike between 5.30pm and 6.00pm, as not a cop would be on the street.

That gave me two advantages. The first being that Hudson was bound to be there; Edward had seen where he was staying in his thoughts, and it was unlikely he would plan on spending any more time there than absolutely necessary.

The second was lots _and lots _of witnesses. Hudson clearly wanted to keep his secret as much as we wanted to keep ours, so he was unlikely to rip me to pieces and burn me in front of his colleagues anytime soon. So I should at least get to speak with him, without fear of immediate attack.

I frowned to myself as I drove. At least I hoped he wanted to keep his secret, my plan relied on him fearing exposure as much as I did....

Anyway, I was unlikely to be alone for long. Despite my elaborate and hasty escape from Edward and our family, he would currently be doing everything he could to get to me. If worst comes to worst he, and most likely at least Jasper and Emmett, would be only minutes behind me.

I felt a twinge of guilt for how Edward must have been feeling. I was sure that if the Hunter didn't kill me, Edward was probably going to have a good try once this was over. My mind lingered for a moment on my parting vision of him; slumped on his knees in the middle of the road in Montana. He had looked so broken in that instant that my resolve had wavered for a second, a lifetime for me these days. I was certain it wouldn't have lasted though; I idly wondered if he was on his way behind me yet; how long would it take for him to procure another form of transport?

I took a deep breath and allowed my plans to come forward in my mind. I had been hiding my intentions deep within me, not allowing them to become plans so as to prevent Alice from seeing them. Now I ran through my plan in my mind clearly and deliberately, as part of it was very much that I needed Alice to be able to see what would happen, as she would be the one to send in the cavalry if I got into serious trouble.

I intended on driving directly to Calgary Police HQ, walking straight through the front door and asking to speak to Special Agent Hudson. I knew that I was walking into the lion's den, but I still believed a fundamental truth – _Hudson is the good guy in this. _I had to do everything I could to save the life of someone who was essentially a hero, and so prevent my family from doing something I wasn't sure they could come back from.

When Edward had fought him yesterday, I had followed enough of the conversation to understand that Hudson seemed to be able to recognise the truth from a lie when he heard it. I hoped that I would get the chance to actually talk to him, to show him our truth, to convince him to let us go without the need for us to destroy him.

I looked down at the speedo for a second and watched the miles clicking past quickly as I raced away from Edward. I again wondered if he had managed to get hold of another car yet, I had been travelling for only fifteen minutes but had travelled an incredible distance; Alice's car was fast.

I realised my breathing was starting to speed up as fear began to take me. What if it takes him longer to get a car than I thought? How long could I take against Hudson if things didn't go as I expected? What would it do to Edward if anything happened to me? What would it do to Ness?

I realised my foot had started to ease off of the accelerator, so I jammed it back down determinedly. If there was one thing I knew; it was Edward, and he would be hard on my heels. Hard enough that I couldn't afford to slow down now, as there was a good chance he'd overtake me. I shook off my panic and replaced it with determination. There was to be no more doubt.

To distract myself I continued to try and build strategies in my mind, going over my planned conversation with Hudson again and again. I wasn't kidding myself that this was going to be easy, and I wasn't stupid; there was still the problem that Emmett was guilty of the crime Hudson had come to investigate. However, I wasn't just planning on begging for our lives, I knew that it would most likely come down to a deal.

I was fairly sure that Hudson knew more than Edward had originally believed about our kind, but he had shown some ignorance originally; the crucifix, arriving at the scene after sunrise. Then there was the fact that Eleazar had believed the Demon Hunters to be extinct, this had to mean that at best there were very few left. Undoubtedly this had led to a loss of knowledge, some of which I hoped that I could trade our lives for.

My mind thought on, I couldn't help but regret Jasper's absence; he was the one who should be here building strategies. I couldn't help but feel rather alone, having grown so used to being part of a couple and part of a family for so long now. But throughout I remained determined, I could now feel Edward behind me and that gave me strength as I raced towards Calgary and Agent Hudson.

Traffic was starting to build up on the interstate and I was weaving between other cars, hoping I wasn't about to see blue lights in my rear-view mirror. The two hour drive had flown past as I had thought through my plans, and almost too soon I found myself only streets away from the Police HQ.

I returned to where Edward had parked yesterday afternoon, and parked legally, feeding the meter enough to stay for several hours. I was going to be in enough trouble with Rosalie for what I had done to the other cars, without Alice getting mad with me for getting her beloved Porsche towed. I snickered for a moment at the thought of Rose's reaction to what I had done to her BMW, she was probably going to _actually _try and kill me when she saw me next..... I stopped that thought and turned slowly to face my goal, I knew that my time was short so I forced my feet to begin to move.

As quickly as I could I made my way towards the Police HQ, spending the time building a firm wall in my mind around my shield. Whatever Hudson threw at me this time, I was not dropping it. I gave quiet thanks for the practice I had made on my shield over the years for Edward's benefit, my mind was strong and now I knew what I was getting into, I was confident.

I strode into the station and glanced around. As I had expected the station was heaving with Police officers, all looking harried trying to finish the end of their shift. There was a main enquiry desk close to the entrance, behind which was a glass wall displaying a large office full of cubicles, full of Police officers. I glanced around quickly, counting forty seven officers on this floor alone. I felt myself relax, despite the situation I was in; _lots _of witnesses.

I hurried towards the main enquiry desk, and stood impatiently, trying to attract someone's attention. I knew I wouldn't be waiting long when I heard one of the sergeants gasp as he glanced up from the paperwork in front of him. I smiled at him, hoping to encourage him towards me.

"Holy hell, take a look at her." I heard the officer mutter to his colleague quietly. He still hadn't moved so I turned my smile up a notch, hoping to speed up the process.

"Dibs" replied his colleague quietly as he made to stand up.

"Hell no!" The first officer leapt up from his desk and hurried forwards, before his colleague had even managed to stand.

As he made his way over I focussed on smiling without dazzling him. I tried to ignore the fear that was worming its way into my insides, making my stomach feel like it was filled with lead.

"Hello Miss, how can I help you?" The officer was smiling at me, and at that moment I was glad for his sake that Edward wasn't with me, as his eyes moved up and down my body appreciatively.

"Hello, I would like to speak with Special Agent Hudson please." I lowered my voice slightly. "It's a private matter." I glanced down and back up at the officer, looking at him through my eyelashes.

He froze for a second and I saw concern flit across his face. "I'm not sure who you mean Miss, maybe it's something I could help you with?"

"No thank you. As I said, it is a private matter; I believe he is working with Detective Drake at the moment." I reduced my smile and tried to convey my seriousness with my eyes. I didn't want to waste time with this man, who was now looking at me with his eyes filled with alarm.

"I'll.... I'll call him now for you. Can I tell him a name?" I could see that he was afraid, and I realised that he had clearly met Agent Hudson.

"Tell him it's Mrs V. He'll know who you mean." I lightened my gaze and smiled at him again, I didn't want him to be worried about me.

The officer left me in the main reception while he returned to his desk to call Hudson for me; I studied my nails as I listened to him. Through the glass wall I could not make out the other side of the conversation, but I could hear him clearly enough.

"Hey Drake, is Hudson there?....... Yeah, there's someone down here for him, says it's private...... No me either....... No, just tell him Mrs V is here to see him............ That's all she said..... I'll send her into one of the meeting rooms down here......... Hell no, bye." He slammed down the phone and I briefly wondered if Drake had offered to put Hudson on the line.

I looked up as he approached me and smiled, trying to look confident, I didn't want any company for our conversation today.

"He's going to be right down. There are meeting rooms over on the other side of the hall if you can see?" He pointed me towards several doors on the far wall, furthest from the glass wall partitioning the outer office from the officer's desks. "Would you mind using the one on the far left?"

"That looks perfect. Thank you so much." I made to turn away, but the officer caught my arm. I stopped as if he had prevented me from moving.

"Do you need anyone else to come in with you?" He mumbled furtively, looking over his shoulder towards the stairwell.

"Thank you." I looked at him and smiled. "I'll be fine on my own. Please don't worry."

He let go of my arm and I smiled at him. I could see he was worried about me, and I tried to look confident as I made my way to the door he had pointed out to me.

As soon as I made it into the room I checked around it carefully, looking for cameras or listening devices. As I had hoped there were none, the room was likely one kept for conversations which needed to be kept off the record. The room was small containing only a table and two chairs setup facing each other, I noted uneasily that there was no window.

I sat down in the chair facing the door and battled with my body, which was desperately trying to convince me to run screaming out of the building. My hands shook badly as I rested them on the table in front of me and I was gasping for breath, feeling as if I might suffocate despite the fact I didn't even need the air. I worked hard on calming myself, wanting to be ready to face Hudson when he arrived, without betraying any fear.

I checked my watch, I had been in Calgary for exactly seven minutes, how much longer would I get until my family arrived?

As I had expected I didn't hear Hudson's approach to the door, but I recognised his scent before he walked in only one or two minutes later. He stood for a moment, before closing the door and sitting in the seat directly opposite me.

We were both silent for a few moments, him watching me as I felt his reassuring abilities try and penetrate my shield. I felt them like feather-light strokes within my mind. I was glad for the sensation; now I could feel it there I knew that I would be able to ward it off. I smiled at him widely and I saw him tense slightly, realising that he was having no affect on me.

He continued to stare at me, without speaking. His face was blank and calm, not betraying any emotion or intention. I watched him, finding myself unable speak as I fought to maintain my shield and to prevent my own fear from overwhelming me. I didn't want to allow him to speak first, but I wasn't sure I would be able to get any words out even if I tried. I began to panic as the silence stretched into several minutes, what if he didn't speak? How long could this silence continue for?

Finally, just as I was sure I couldn't take anymore, he broke it. "What do you want?" His tone was relaxed and slightly bored, as if he was completely disinterested in me.

"Just to talk." I almost sighed in relief as his voice dissolved the weight that had been suffocating me and I found I could speak again.

"I don't talk to _parasites_." He still sounded bored, but I saw a flicker of something else in his eyes.

"I want to help you. I want to save your life." I tried to sound confident, but my voice sounded small and afraid.

"Ha!" He sat back in his seat and a confident air appeared over him. I was focussing on my shield and I could almost see the emotions he was emitting, virtually throwing at me. "I think we established yesterday; it ain't my life at threat here."

"Not by me, no. There are more of us though, and they are quite determined." My confidence was creeping back as I spoke and my voice was becoming more normal. I looked him in the eye and hoped he couldn't see the fear that was even now bubbling up inside of me.

"Bring. It. On." His voice was suddenly harsh and full of anger as he iterated every word of his challenge.

I paused for a moment and swallowed. The Hunter's anger filled the room and bombarded me, I struggled under it, my shield buckling under its weight.

With every ounce of determination I had I pushed back the fear my mind was drowning in under his fury, and made myself reply as calmly as I could. "If that is what you wish, I'll leave. None of us actually want to destroy you though. Is your pride worth more than your life?"

He stopped short and looked at me. I felt the emotions he had been sending at me slow and then stop. "How can you sit here in front of me so peacefully? It's just..... impossible." His voice was hushed and I could see confusion working its way across his face.

"I have my own secrets Agent Hudson." None that I wanted to reveal to him though.

"Is that how you can be here, surrounded by humans, and still not be crippled by bloodlust?" As he spoke he leaned towards me slowly, I could feel his blue eyes trying to catch mine and I looked down to avoid them.

"I was telling you the truth yesterday. My family and I do not hunt humans; we live in peace alongside them. I have never harmed a single person." I spoke in the same hushed tone as I tried to show him the truth of my words.

He paused as he raked his hand through his hair, the gesture made me ache for Edward. "I don't believe you, but at the same time I know it's the truth."

"We all fight our urges each and every day, I'm not pretending it's easy, but none of us wants to be a monster." As I spoke Hudson stood and began to pace up and down in the limited space of the room. A million emotions seemed to be crossing his face and I waited patiently for him to speak.

"None of you should exist you know. You're an aberration." He suddenly spat at me, he looked at me hatefully from the furthest side of the small room where he had stopped, clearly maximising the space between us.

"I know, we all know. Yet we live our lives as peacefully as we can." I didn't move from my seat, allowing him the space he needed. I was sure being in my presence was as unpleasant for him as it was for me.

"And your mate, has he ever killed a human?" His eyes narrowed and I remembered that I couldn't lie to him if I wanted to earn his trust.

"He has, but only truly evil ones, and not for over seventy years."

"So that justifies it does it? What were his criteria in deciding who deserved to die?" His tone was heavily sarcastic as he leant back against the wall behind him, pushing away from me unconsciously. At the same time I could feel more touches against my shield from him and I could sense that he was trying to make me feel afraid.

"What're yours?"

"Being a Vampire seems a good start." He looked at me and his face pulled into a sinister smile. I realised that even with my shield some of his influence was still coming through and I began to feel afraid again.

"Do I, who have never harmed a human, deserve to die more than say, a human mass murderer?" I kept my voice steady with effort, trying to remain relaxed despite the feelings creeping over me.

He didn't reply, his glare intensifying. I decided to continue as I knew the sound of my own voice would help me keep control of myself.

"Surely you, a protector of innocents, would understand the death of a murderer or a rapist? Wouldn't that feel like justice to you?"

"That is not up to you to decide, vengeance is not the same as justice" He angrily strode towards his chair and sat down in front of me again. "Human criminals are left to human justice, that's the way it has always been. It is up to them to judge innocence or guilt. Your kind has no right to interfere anymore than mine does."

"But you accept that a beating heart does not define innocence; anymore than a non beating one determines guilt." I was beginning to feel a kinship with Hudson, even hope. His eyes showed he understood what I was saying to him, and for a few seconds I felt hope that, just maybe, we could find a way through this.

"Oh yes, guilt. Despite the fact that no one in your family harms humans, someone definitely got peckish on Friday. What's your excuse for that?" His sarcastic tone was back, and my hopes were dashed in an instant. He had agreed with my argument that maybe murderers deserved their fate, but how could I justify the death of an innocent woman by my brother's hand?

"I know there isn't one. It sounds trite, but to err is human. I told you every day was a struggle; my brother was overcome by circumstances."

"So d'you think I should just let him go with a slap on the wrist and tell him to not do it again? Maybe he could do some community service?" His sarcastic tone faded as he paused for a second, "Doesn't Anna Stoker deserve your precious justice?"

"She does. We regret-"

"Regret!" He stopped me mid sentence and his fury was staggering. I cowered in my seat from him as he raged at me, standing and looming over me. Part of my mind worried how much the Police Officers on the other side of the door could hear. "Don't tell me about regret! She deserved better than this, this SICKNESS! Can you imagine the horror of her last moments? The terror she would have felt at the hands of a creature like you? She was desecrated. And you. _You regret_." He laughed at me as he finished, and I felt full of shame.

"I do regret; you have no idea how much." I spoke in a whisper, realising that by trying to excuse Emmett's crime I was little better than him.

"Then leave this place, and wait for me. Because be certain; I am coming, and you will all fall." There was power and honour in his voice, and I realised that I would not be able to convince him to leave us alone because we didn't deserve to die, because in his mind we did. Whether or not I was guilty, I had confessed to him that we all presented a risk to the people around us. We struggled to contain our thirst and we did not always succeed.

"There are seven of us, and you know that is more than enough to beat you if we fight. In fact, the rest of them are quite determined to destroy you." In my own ears I sounded resigned; I already knew that my fight was lost. We would fight the Hunter, and he would die by our hands.

"Yeah, they all sound such innocents don't they, planning another murder to save themselves." He didn't look afraid, but I was sure even he understood that he would not survive a fight with seven vampires. It made me feel even guiltier as I realised that he would rather die than negotiate over our lives, preferring to do what he saw as the right thing at any cost.

"No, they would do it for each other, for me. Not one of us would fight to save our own lives, rather to save the lives of the ones we love." I caught his eyes as I spoke, begging him to understand that what I was saying was the truth.

"They would do it? Not including yourself in that then? Not up for the challenge pretty girl?" He looked at me defiantly, clearly trying to rile me.

"No, I don't want to destroy you. I know that you're the good guy here."

"So why d'you care so much about me? Are you hot for me, cause you've gotta know that's not my style." He sneered at me as he spoke, defensive, but I could see fear in his eyes.

"I don't give a shit about you personally." I looked down at my fingernails to break his gaze, I was struggling internally to maintain my shield, his attacks on it were becoming stronger and more aggressive, and I knew I could only maintain it for a little longer. "But I don't want my husband to have blood on his hands after 70 years. He's a good man."

"Yeah, he sounds like a Prince. I'm really not worried, one of you or seven of you, I'm taking you down and you deserve it." He sneered again, but I could see uncertainty on his face this time.

"Even me, an innocent? Or my sisters, who have never tasted human blood, or maybe our father, who has never harmed a human in his three-hundred and seventy years, and now works as a doctor in whichever hospital we live closest to at the time?"

He didn't reply, simply staring me down.

"It doesn't matter, as if we don't destroy you, then someone else will. I seriously doubt you could take us all down, but if you can, there are bigger, scarier monsters waiting in the wings for you." My voice sounded bitter and I spat my last words at him. I wanted to damn him to hell for being so obstinate, but in the back of my mind I knew that the very reason I wanted to protect him dictated the fact that I would not be able to convince him to let us go.

"What do you mean?" He looked angry as soon as he spoke, I could see he hadn't meant to ask me the question but it had come out before he'd thought to stop it.

"The Volturi will come for you. After our little stunt yesterday they will also most likely come for us as well, but once they know about you....... They will hunt you down, however long it takes." He sat down again in the chair in front of me. I realised I had been almost as still as a statue since he had walked in the room, and wondered if the reason he had moved about so much was to compensate. I shuffled in my chair and rearranged my hair, just to make him feel more comfortable.

"I've heard the name..... I didn't believe they really existed. An army of vampires? Surely not even in my worst nightmares...." He sounded horrified and I felt sympathy with him. I felt horrified when I thought about them as well.

"They exist. They police my kind, my husband and I will most likely be sentenced to die if they hear about us exposing ourselves to the public yesterday. And when they come, they will find you too." As I spoke I felt the mental attacks from Hudson finally stop, he was looking through me, still processing my revelation.

"I take it the Volturi aren't 'vegetarians'?" He whispered, confirming what he already knew.

"No."

"How many?"

"A lot, ten or more, but it doesn't matter. They have gifts that leave even an army powerless against them."

We sat in silence for a few moments; I waited for him to speak, no longer having the energy to fight, or maybe even speak, myself. I looked at my watch and realised I had now been in Calgary for exactly twenty- eight minutes. I was certain that by now Edward was with me, probably listening to every word we said from outside the building. For a moment I was afraid. How angry was he going to be with me?

As we sat I focussed on maintaining the charade to Hudson that I had not been affected by the constant barrage of mental influence he had exerted over me over the last few minutes. I knew that to betray the weakened state I was in now would likely be fatal. I concentrated on looking relaxed; I could only pray that my acting skills had improved considerably over the last few years.

"Why are you here?" I started slightly at his voice; I hoped he didn't notice.

"My family will destroy you if you make us. I'm simply here to beg you not to. We both have a bigger enemy on the horizon." My shoulders slumped and I moved my eyes down to the desk between us. I was exhausted. The words we had spoken were hard, but the mental battle I had fought, keeping my mind under my own control, had drained me almost completely.

I didn't move as the Hunter stood up and left the room without another word. I didn't know if I had succeeded or failed, only that I needed to leave while I was still able, desperate for the arms of my husband.

But before I had the chance to stand, though truth be told I wasn't sure whether or not I was going to be able to, I heard the door open again in front of me. For an instant terror hit me, I was unable to raise my eyes to see the Hunter standing before me, but I was certain that was what I would see. Hudson; returned and ready to drag me away to burn me to ashes.

However, before my exhausted mind finally broke, it made a final effort for me and recognised the beautiful scent of the man now scooping me up out of my seat.

As Edward gently carried me out of the doorway of Calgary Police HQ I finally lost my grip on my mind, spiralling into darkness for the first time in five years. The last thing I saw was his worried face looking down at me.

-

A/N – Firstly, Thank you so much to everyone for all your kind reviews. You guys are absolutely great! You have no idea how happy it made me to hear from you all, and this chapter just wrote itself it put me in such a good mood.

I didn't have a chance to answer every single one, but believe me when I say that I read and appreciated them all!

Now for some shameless self promotion; High Noon has been nominated for a Sparkle Award and I understand that voting has now opened, so if you like it go vote for it!

thesparkleawards(dot)webs(dot)com

Secondly, I have started a new story, which I have adopted from Athey. It's something different for me, currently quite fluffy, but I think you guys must know me well enough by now to know that it's gonna have an edge........

Reviews make me happy......


	21. Out of Time

Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight!

The first thing I became aware of was a burning thirst, my throat feeling more scorched than it ever had when I was a newborn. My first instinct to grab at my throat to try to soothe it in some way was overruled by my body, which didn't seem capable of movement just yet.

I gasped a breath, the only motion I was still in control of, inhaling the sweetest scent I had ever smelled. I began to fight harder to move, feeling trapped by the weight of my limbs.

"Bella. Bella can you hear me?" I heard an urgent voice, but I couldn't tell who it was. "She inhaled, she can smell it."

"Bella, please love, try." I heard another voice that I did recognise. That I would have recognised if I were in fact dead, I was sure.

The scent and the voice begging me equally to move; I fought the fog over my mind and pushed hard against it. I recognised the sensation and realised I was fighting my own shield, trapping me in an almost physical way. I could feel its weight upon me, holding me down. I struggled against it completely unable to move, unable even to betray my inner battle to any observer as I remained absolutely still.

Intense frustration filled me and made me push harder, flinging it away from me suddenly. There was a crash as I felt the weight leave me and I opened my eyes.

"What the fuck..." I heard Emmett say in the background, but I was too focussed on finding the source of the voice and the delicious scent to hear anyone else speaking.

"Bella! Can you move? Bella, can you hear me?" Edward's face appeared over mine as I tried to work out where I was. My mind was functioning much more slowly than usual and I felt strangely detached, the many trains of thought I was used to as a vampire merging into only one – Edward.

I caught his worried gaze and relaxed for an instant, until I saw something that made my whole body clench in horror. His beautiful eyes, a light honey colour the last time I saw them, were a dark burgundy. That was enough to finally pull me from the remains of my lethargy.

"Edward..." My voice came out small and tired. The effort it took me to speak seemed to drain me beyond comprehension and I felt my eyes begin to drift shut again. I suddenly heard a different voice.

"Bella! No stop! You have to feed now Bella. Come back, we don't have time for this!" I thought I recognised Alice's voice, high and frightened, before my mind was totally taken over by the ravishing scent again.

I felt a cup at my lips and I managed to take something from it into my mouth, swallowing hesitantly, the effort seeming to be almost insurmountable.

"That's it. You must feed, you used up everything against the Hunter." Alice was still speaking, but she no longer needed to be concerned. As soon as the first few drops of the sweet nectar they were feeding me hit my stomach I regained strength instantly, and I sat up snatching the cup that she had been proffering, drinking greedily.

My strength returned to me rapidly, and as I gulped down a second and third cup of blood I was able to look around and assess where I was.

I was on a bed in a small white room, from the machines sitting inactive around me I assumed we were in a hospital. Edward was sitting on the bed beside me, clutching hold of Alice's hand furiously as she stood beside him. Jasper, Emmett and Rosalie were all standing around the bed looking at me, their faces etched with concern. The lights were on, and I could see that it was fully dark outside.

My mind, swiftly recovering, spent an instant remembering my conversation with the Hunter, which had felt more like a battle to me. The last thing I remembered was Edward lifting me from my chair, then... nothing.

I looked at him, suddenly remembering my first vision of him when I came around.

"Your eyes......" I reached out towards his face unable to ask the question, though I was certain what the answer would be.

"Carlisle said it was the only way for both of us to heal fast enough. It's donated blood." He spoke quietly before he looked down, still clearly uncomfortable with the fact he had consumed human blood, whatever the source.

"Both of us...?" I looked down at the cup still in my hand; the very one I had drained dry only a few moments before. I threw it away from me in disgust, hitting the wall and leaving a small red splatter against the white paint. "What the hell Edward! This isn't going to help our case." I remembered my assurances to Hudson only hours ago, and closed my eyes in defeat.

"We don't have time for anything else Bella." He looked at Alice and the change in their expression made my heart drop into my stomach.

There was silence for a few moments until I found the strength to break it. "They're coming."

"Within hours." Edward pulled me into his arms as my mind swam again for a moment. They were coming. I waited for the fear to come and overwhelm me but instead I remained strangely calm, unsurprised by their revelation.

"The Volturi." The word came out of my mouth like a curse. "Who for?"

"You and Edward have been sentenced, they know about what happened yesterday." Alice whispered, her face blank, clearly still searching. "This time it's just the guard and Caius. There will be no negotiation if we face them."

"Then we have to leave, you can't be anywhere near us." My strength now nearly fully returned I leapt from the bed. "I can shield Edward, we'll run." I was certain that the Volturi would be using Demetri's tracking skills to find us, skills that were useless against my shield.

"It's the excuse they've been waiting for Bella, if they can't find you two, they'll go after us anyway. We have a better chance together." Alice's face looked sad, and I saw her exchange a glance with Edward.

"We can't face them, there are too many." Everyone looked towards Jasper as he spoke, his face grave. "There are only seven of us; they must have been planning this ever since the last time we met them in Forks."

"How many?" In my mind I was already planning, knowing that one call to Jake would see our numbers greatly increased.

"I can't be totally sure, but it's too many. I can see maybe twenty or thirty." Alice reached out and Jasper caught her hand in his before she continued. "They are all fairly new, but trained. Warriors. Caius has built an army."

"Twenty or thirty?" I croaked as I spoke, even with the wolves on our side a battle would be too close. If we included them we would just be adding their deaths to our own.

"Too many to fight. They would destroy Bella in seconds, probably with Edward along the way, and then Jane and Alec would take over. It wouldn't be a fight, it would be extermination."

"Easy Jasper, it isn't going to come to that." Edward looked at me and took my hands before he continued. "Can you shield all of us, if we run? They will eventually lose interest and stop looking for us. Then we can think of some kind of plan to stop them being able to find us in the future." He looked back at Jasper, but I couldn't even begin to think about what that plan might look like.

Without replying I threw my shield out widely, finding the tiny pricks of light that represented the five of them in the room with me without any problem.

"Where's Carlisle?" I noticed that he was not under my shield, even though I had cast it widely and I could feel hundreds of humans under it, but only five vampires. I wondered what would make him separate himself from us right now, with so many dangers so close at hand.

"He's getting you more blood, he should be back in a minute." Edward said as I heard a gasp from behind him.

Alice's eyes were glazed again, but the confusion on her face was clear. "He's gone, I can't see him."

"What? What do you mean he's gone?" Edward stood, panic filling his face suddenly.

"I can't see him; I've been so busy watching the Volturi I hadn't noticed. He's just, _gone_."

As one we all leapt towards the door, everything else forgotten but Carlisle in that moment.

"Where's the Hunter?" I muttered at Edward as we moved. Even with the Volturi on their way towards us, I knew that we had other dangers nearby.

"He followed us here with you, but I still can't hear him and Alice can't see him, so I'm not sure what happened after we arrived." Edward replied as we hurried down the quiet hospital corridor. We passed a clock that told me it was a little before nine, I had been unconscious for nearly three hours.

All six of us ran together, following Carlisle's scent towards the stairwell at the far end of the corridor. I couldn't hear any humans on the floor, and as we ran I noticed that many of the rooms were in various states of disrepair. "Where are we?"

"Calgary General, they're redecorating the top two floors, Carlisle thought it was the best place to bring us so we could access some.... things." I heard the hesitancy in Edward's voice to admit that we had come here for human blood. "Here he had access to everything he needed, without having to expose us to any humans. We waited until all of the workmen had left before we brought you in."

"What does he think happened to me?" We were speaking at vampire speed; I felt a desperate urge to catch up with what had happened while I had been unconscious.

"He's never seen it before. A vampire can actually starve themselves to the point their bodies and minds begin to shut down, but usually the bloodlust would take over before that happened. He thinks the effort it took you to prevent the Hunter from breaching your shield drained every drop of energy you had."

"How much did you hear?"

"Most of it, we got there just after he did." He glanced over at me and for the first time I saw the fury I had expected in his face. "It took all of them to prevent me from just going in there and dragging you out, Hunter or not. Do you have any idea what could have happened? What I would have done if he had harmed you? Didn't you think about Ness at all?"

As he spoke we reached the stairwell, and all of us froze at the scent that hit us as Edward pushed the door open.

"Hudson." Edward said, his voice a whisper.

"And Carlisle." Edward was already flying down the stairs before I had finished speaking, with Jasper and Emmett behind him. Alice Rose and I followed quickly behind, following the now mingled trail of Carlisle and the Hunter. There was no mistaking it; they had been in this stairwell together only minutes previously.

We reached the car park in seconds, reluctantly slowing to human speed as we broke out into the open air. I was surprised to see not only the Porsche, but also Rosalie's BMW and Edward's Alfa, all lined up together. Edward was standing in an empty space to the left of them, which I could only assume had formerly held Carlisle's Mercedes.

"Alice, do you see anything?" Edward's voice was loud and fast, I could see panic was overtaking him at the thought of the loss of Carlisle.

"No, I can't see him.... he's just gone." She cried out the last few words as Edward took her by the shoulders, shaking her.

"Look harder, Bella got past the Hunter so can you. LOOK HARDER." Edward shook Alice as he spoke, making her head whip back and forth sharply.

Jasper leapt at him with a snarl and knocked him away from her. "Get off of her Edward; she's doing the best she can."

Edward and Jasper glared at each other for a moment, Jasper standing defensively between him and Alice. Finally Edward's shoulders slumped, "I'm sorry Alice, it's just...... _Carlisle_." His voice broke as he said Carlisle's name, he ran his hands roughly through his hair and his eyes were wild.

"I know." Alice began to sob, her eyes glinting with the tears she was unable to shed. "I just can't see him, I..... I don't know.... and we just don't have the time....." She was descending into hysterics and Jasper pulled her into his arms.

All this time I had been standing between Emmett and Rosalie, spectators to the debacle before us, frozen as we awaited some kind of answer. I thanked god that it was late enough that the car park was empty of any human at that precise moment.

Suddenly I became aware of Edward looking at me speculatively. "Alice's power isn't affected by your shield is it Bella?"

"You know that it isn't"

"But the Hunter's is, if you really try."

"Yes." I was beginning to get frustrated, my own fears for Carlisle wanting action not words, but I waited for him to continue.

"Could you shield Alice? Do you think your shield can remove the impact the Hunter is having on her?"

"I am shielding her; I'm shielding all of you right now anyway." I shuddered slightly at the reminder of what was before us.

"No, I mean, like for me, when you pull me right in. I can still hear other people at the moment, maybe it might help...." He looked from me to Alice, who was staring at me.

"I don't know, I've not done that with anyone other than you, and I've been practising around you for years. I don't know if I can." I realised everyone was looking at me expectantly and I closed my eyes to avoid their stares.

"Try." He whispered

The sudden weight of their expectation was horrifying. Not only was I responsible for exposing us all to the Hunter, but now for the loss of Carlisle. I could feel all of their eyes burning into me as I reached out for Alice in my mind.

I searched for her, I could see the light in my shield that represented her, bright and pink, but I couldn't find a way to wrap myself around her in the same way I did Edward. I reached out, but it was like grasping at a dandelion seed caught in the wind, the light seeming to move as I reached for it.

"Alice..." I called her, hoping the sound of her name would help me, in a flash I felt her pull me into her arms.

"I'm here Bella, you can do this." She put her chin against my neck and squeezed herself up against me as I wrapped my arms tightly around her waist, but I still couldn't reach her.

My mind felt like a swirl and I needed something to ground me. I could still feel everyone else under my shield and I tried to reach for Edward, finding I could wrap him into myself as easily as I ever had.

_I'm trying Edward, it's not working._

"Open your eyes - look at her." I did as he said, my first sight the same as it had been earlier, his dark red eyes looking at me in worry.

I looked down at Alice and in the second our eyes met I felt her slip effortlessly into Edward's place in my shield. I wrapped it tightly around her, at the same time grasping her more tightly against my body as I felt her gasp and lurch against me.

"Alice?" Jaspers voice was nervous, and I could feel him hovering over us, ready to rip her from my arms.

"I can see them_. I can see them_!" She crowed with victory, a massive grin spreading across her face.

"Is Carlisle ok?" Edward was entirely still as he spoke, his fear for Carlisle etched on his face.

"Yes, he's driving, I can't see what's going to happen..." Alice scowled for a moment. "The Hunter hasn't decided anything though; I don't think he's blocking me."

"Where are they going?" Edward was beside us as well, and I was beginning to feel claustrophobic, being so fully invaded mentally as well as physically.

"Towards Wendle, towards the forest. The Hunter wants to talk to Carlisle, he's looking at him..... I don't know..... like he thinks he's being deceived."

Meanwhile the effort it was taking me to hold Alice was growing. Having a foreign consciousness so forcefully wrapped in my shield was uncomfortable, and I found my mind tightening its grip on her, trying to hang on. My awareness of my surroundings was slipping as I focussed on her alone, desperate to maintain our connection and so her vision of Carlisle. I felt my face screw up with the effort I was making, and my body begin to tremble.

I became aware of a shriek coming from somewhere close, and I heard Jasper's voice by my ear.

"Let her go, let her go!" He sounded desperate, and I realised the shriek was coming from Alice. I could feel hands and arms suddenly all around me, trying to pull us apart. I registered their urgency and my stomach flipped at the thought that I was hurting her.

I threw my shield away from me, as hard as I could, letting go of Alice in the process. There was an enormous crash, and at the same time I felt all of the arms that had been around me vanish.

For a moment I stood still, shocked by the sudden space surrounding me after being so tightly encircled the instant before. I struggled to take in the scene before me, confused by what I saw.

In front of me my family were scattered about the area, Emmett was lying on top of Rosalie's now virtually flattened BMW. Alice and Jasper were in each other's arms on the floor, in a pile of broken up tarmac, nearly a hundred yards away. Rosalie was slowly standing, having been lying in a crater in the grass on the other side of the car park. For what seemed like hours, but could only have been a couple of seconds, I searched around with panic building in my chest, unable to see Edward anywhere.

Suddenly I felt a pair of solid arms wrap around me from behind, and Edward's breath on my neck, I collapsed against him in relief and confusion.

"I hate to repeat myself guys, but what the fuck?" Emmett was heaving himself out of the smashed BMW as he spoke, scowling down at the wreckage.

"Shhhh, Bella, calm down." Edward, ignoring Emmett, was stroking my hair, as he rocked me in his arms gently. "It's ok, we're all ok."

I looked around myself again, watching as my family walked towards me almost warily, and realised what had caused the chaos all around. Me. I realised I was gasping loudly for breaths that I didn't even need, and tried to focus on calming myself. I turned in towards Edward and buried my face in his chest, gripping him to me fiercely.

"Was that Bella?" Rosalie's voice was uneven, and I turned to see her standing beside Emmett, her eyes moving between her former car and me.

"I think so; I suspect she was what made the table hit the wall in the hospital too." As Edward spoke I remembered another crash not too long ago, as I came around upstairs.

"But she's a _mental_ shield; I've never heard of anything like..... telekinesis?" I heard Jasper speaking, but I didn't move from where I was in Edward's arms, watching Rosalie looking at me in fear.

"You know that powers grow as we age Jasper." Edward sounded very calm, I became aware that I was too, and realised that Jasper was most likely trying to diffuse a potentially dangerous situation. "And with the efforts she's been making against the Hunter, something has clearly changed."

"Is she in control of them?"

There was silence, and I realised they were waiting for me to reply, "I'm ok. I was just trying to release Alice, it felt like I was crushing her." I finally managed to make myself turn to look at them, Jasper was supporting Alice by his side, and relief hit me as she smiled.

"I'm ok, you were just holding on to me so tightly..... It hurt." Her smile widened as her voice showed her surprise at her comment.

"What _was_ that?" I whispered as I looked up at Edward, trying to read his eyes. I couldn't believe what seemed to be happening. How on earth could that have been me?

"I think it was you. Didn't you feel it?"

I looked back and tried to recall what was going through my mind in the moments before they were all thrown away from me. I remembered hugging Alice to my chest, trying to hold onto her mind to allow her to continue to see Carlisle. I remembered the feel of her body being crushed by mine, and the shriek in my ears as I tried to push her away. "I was just trying to push Alice away; I didn't want to hurt her."

"We need to get to Carlisle...." Edward looked towards Alice with renewed purpose. "Do you know where they're headed?"

"Yes, but we're not going to have time to get to them and get away from the Volturi. They're going to be here _soon_." She looked at Jasper, "If we go for Carlisle we will end up facing them, before the end of tomorrow."

"We can't win...." He looked at her in agony, the soldier in him clearly posing the argument that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.

A look passed between each of us, a conversation that had to go unspoken simply because no one had the will to voice any of it. Seconds passed, an infinity of time to each of us as we each made the same choice.

"There is no alternative. Carlisle needs us to go after him." Edward's voice was flat, and as he spoke he looked down at me. "But you can run, go to meet Ness and Esme and run with them. I can't..." His voice broke off, grief washing over his face.

"No."

"Bella..."

"No. The Volturi have no quarrel with Ness or Esme, they won't go after them unless they have to follow me."

"There will be no negotiation Bella; we won't all survive this time." Edward cupped my face in his hands and leant his forehead against mine. "I can't watch you die."

"Without me you have no chance at all, I would be leaving you _all _to die. Please don't ask me again Edward; I don't want to fight with you." I begged him with my eyes to understand me; I would rather stand and fall with him than survive an eternity alone.

There was another moment's pause, all of us stood and looked around at each other; the family we loved without question. As I gazed at each of them in turn I fought to ignore the voice deep within me that wondered which, if any, of them would survive this.

"Alice, we'll follow you. Rose, Emmett, you're with us." Edward finally spoke, breaking the silence that had overtaken us.

Without another word we walked towards our remaining cars, Rosalie glancing once towards her shattered BMW as she climbed into the back of the Alfa. We pulled out of the car park and headed towards Wendle, where Carlisle, the Hunter and god knew what else awaited us.

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**A/N – I know, I'm sorry. I hate it when people take ages to update too, this chapter has just killed me for some reason! The next one is already half written and won't take nearly so long I promise! **

**Now for some shameless self promotion:**

**This story has been nominated for the Nessie award (best post Breaking Dawn) in the sparkle awards, if you like it go and vote now, voting closes on 8****th**** November. Sparkleawards(dot)webs(dot)com.**

**If you haven't found it yet I am also writing a new story, something quite different to this, but you guys must know me well enough by now to know it won't all be fluff forever.....**

**Finally, leave me a review – they are my own personal brand of heroin...**

**Ria.**


	22. Waiting for Absolution

Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight!

Huge thanks to venomaddict for being my beta, and keeping me on the straight and narrow!

* * *

As we drove through the city all was quiet in both cars; I could feel the tension building up between us to the point it was a tangible force in the air, almost like static electricity. I looked out of the window, watching the people we passed on the dark streets. Being a Monday night it was relatively quiet, but still there were signs of life, people going about their business. Unaware of the storm that was coming.

I couldn't simply let Edward sit quietly and get more and more stressed, so I decided to try to distract him. I wrapped him tightly up in my shield before I asked a question that had been bothering me ever since I woke up.

_Is Rosalie going to kill me over what I did to the cars?_

He grimaced at me for a moment, before one side of his mouth raised slightly. He glanced at me for a second with one eyebrow raised.

_Hmm, and that was before I chucked Emmett onto her still showroom shiny Z4. I guess she's really mad at me now huh?_

He rolled his eyes at me, his mouth twitching at the side again in agreement.

_It's so frustrating not being able to hear you as well you know. It hardly seems fair. You get my full inner monologue, but I just get various facial twitches. Anybody watching us must think there's something wrong with you._

At that he snorted slightly, an almost smile making its way across his face for a split second.

"That's just rude you two. We're not idiots, we know you're talking to each other." Rosalie cut into our conversation, irritation plain in her voice. "You're getting as bad as Alice with it Bella."

"Hey..!" I heard Alice squawk in indignation from the Porsche in front of us.

"And to be honest, if we survive the next couple of days, I'm going to kick your butt into the middle of next week. You owe me a new BMW." In the mirror I watched her cross her arms in front of herself as she huffed.

"I dunno Rosie, you might want to watch yourself with our little sister these days." Emmett was grinning as he spoke, enjoying the chance to tease her for a moment. "That was a pretty big whack she gave me today - without laying a finger on me."

"At least you only landed on a car Emmett, I can assure you, it could have been _much_ worse." Edward was smiling, I felt relieved that he was able to relax for a few moments. I needed to see his smile now, while I still could.

"Yeah Eddie, that didn't look funny bro." Emmett began to roar with laughter, Rosalie joining him; both of them making the car shake as Edward's smile turned rather sour.

"Where did you land then Edward?" Emmett and Rosalie's reaction piqued my interest, as I remembered the panicky seconds during which I'd not been able to find him.

He glanced over at me and his mouth pursed slightly. "I landed in a hospital garbage receptacle." He spoke in a clipped tone, almost daring me to press him further.

The laughing from the backseat increased tenfold, Emmett banging on the back of Edward's seat, spluttering as he desperately tried to spit out whatever smart-aleck comment had come into his mind. I could also hear Alice and Jasper hooting with laughter from the Porsche in front of us, and finding it contagious I began to chortle along with them.

Finally I began to understand what Emmett was saying, "You know... the place they.... put... all the bits....they cut off... the humans...."

Edward's face finally collapsed as he began to laugh along with us. I felt sure that a degree of hysteria was involved due to the stress we had all been under for the last few days, but I didn't care. It was nice just to laugh again.

"It wasn't quite like that Emmett" Edward was still laughing, and my tired mind lapped up my favourite sound in the whole world. "But it did smell pretty appalling."

I looked him up and down for a moment and recognised something I really should have done earlier. At some point between my waking up in the hospital and us all climbing into the cars, Edward had acquired some new clothes. He was now wearing a white turtleneck sweater with new black jeans and boots. Seeing my appraisal of him he confirmed what I was seeing.

"I took some clothes out of a shop window a few hundred yards down the street from the hospital, the ones I was wearing before were ruined..." He rolled his eyes at me as a fresh round of laughter emerged from the back seat. "Tell me again, why did we buy a car with more than two seats?"

"That's not even the best bit Bella," Emmett had calmed down enough to continue revelling in Edward's embarrassment. "You clearly missed the very girlish squeak of surprise he made when he landed. No mighty car smashing crash for him, oh no."

At that Edward growled loudly from the driver's seat, turning to glare at Emmett as he did so, only making Emmett laugh even harder.

Gradually the laughter died down, the mood in both cars significantly lightened; despite whatever lay ahead of us. Throughout our journey neither car slowed at all, both moving at well over a hundred miles an hour at all times. The journey from central Calgary to Wendle and home would only take us around thirty minutes at the pace we had set.

Eventually Edward returned to the subject I knew had been bubbling in his mind ever since we set off. "So, do you think you could do it again? On command?" He glanced over at me, measuring my reaction to his question.

"To be completely honest I really don't know." I had been sitting flexing my shield for a lot of the time we had been in the car, trying to get used to how it felt. "It feels different in my mind, compared to before. It feels almost.... solid."

I closed my eyes and tried flexing my shield; observing the different layers there now seemed to be within my mind. The very outer layer was new, and seemed to thicken or fade as I willed it to. The effort it took me to strengthen this new layer though was discernible, and I found if I tried hold it for more than a second or two the effort became too much.

Emmett leant between the front seats, turning to look at me. "Try and move something... you know you want to." He winked at me as Rosalie yanked him back into the backseat.

"I don't think that's a very good idea Emmett." She was scowling at him as she spoke while glancing at me, her face suddenly concerned. "You saw what she did; she's got no control over it at all."

Irritation flashed through me at her words and tone, for a second I felt glad that I had squashed her car under Emmett. "I was surprised earlier; I think I probably have at least a little control over it." I wasn't sure if what I was saying was true or not, but I didn't like Rosalie telling me what to do.

"Go on Bella, try it. I think we'll be ok." I grinned as Alice encouraged me from the Porsche.

"You're not the one sitting in a car with her Alice. I think I get some say in this."

"Rose....." Edward's tone contained a warning, and he was watching me confidently, "Go on, try and move something small. I'm sure you can do it love."

I sat and flexed my shield again for a moment, examining how it felt in my mind. As I thought about it I reached out my hand and I almost felt like I could touch it. The time I had spent training my abilities had made me very adept with them, and I realised that I was actually fairly confident I _could _do it again.

I searched around the car, looking for something to move. I just wanted something small, that if I lost control of it wouldn't cause any serious damage to anyone or anything. The memory of my family scattered about the hospital car park was still rather fresh in my mind. As I searched I could see Rosalie glaring at me in the mirror, her arms folded just beneath a large Onyx pendant which was suspended around her neck on a leather cord. A wicked thought came into my mind.

I wondered if she could actually get any madder with me than she already was, I pursed my lips to disguise a smile and decided to find out. I reached out towards her with my shield and tweaked at the pendant around her neck. It lifted up away from her for a moment, before it dropped against her chest again.

"What the...?" Rosalie looked down at her chest and back up at me at lightning speed, a look of pure fury crossing her face. "You wouldn't dare!"

I had no idea where I found the audacity, but I reached out to Rosalie's pendant again mentally, and this time snatched it from around her neck. It moved as fast as a bullet into my waiting hand.

"Woah... Cool." Emmett looked impressed in the instant before he had to grab hold of Rosalie as she tried to reach me across the back of my seat. "Easy Rosie..."

"I _cannot_ believe you did that! Forget waiting, I'm going to kick your butt right now!" She struggled against Emmett, reaching out towards me as if she wanted to strangle me.

I could hear laughter coming from the Porsche again, and when I glanced over at Edward he also looked like he was restraining a smile. "I have to support Emmett in his assessment Bella. That was cool!" He looked over at me, and I could suddenly see hope in his eyes.

"Yeah, it kinda was, wasn't it?" I looked down into my hand at Rosalie's pendant, turning it over to check it was undamaged by its sudden movement. I held it out towards her, she was now sitting back in her seat, still glaring but no longer actively attempting to throttle me. "Sorry Rose, I couldn't help myself."

"That is exactly what I was afraid of Bella." She caught my eye, and I could see the genuine fear she felt for me at that moment. Or was it of me? I wasn't sure, but either way I didn't like that it was there.

"Rose, it won't get away from me again, the only reason I lost control earlier is that I had no idea I could even do that. It actually feels pretty much the same as it always has, it's just that I can... make it solid now... it's hard to explain. But I think I can control it pretty well. You don't need to worry, honestly."

I saw her relax slightly in her seat, but she still held my gaze. "Ok. But you still owe me a new car."

Jasper began to speak from the car ahead of us "I think the more interesting thought at the moment is whether we can make use of Bella's new... skill, actually Rose." Edward was nodding as he continued. "The Volturi know about her mental shielding abilities, but not this. It gives us an edge. How well can you control it Bella?"

I thought about what he was asking me for a moment before I replied. I realised that I was going to be key in another battle with the Volturi, only this time I might actually have to become a little more physically involved. I reached out towards the car in front of me and aimed at Jasper, I tried to squeeze his hand gently.

"Holy Shit!" I heard a loud clunk as I assumed Jasper jerked away from the sensation. "Was that you? Holy Shit!"

"What did you do?" Edward was looking at me curiously again. In the backseat both Emmett and Rosalie had leant forward to see more clearly what was happening.

Wordlessly I reached out to Edward and stroked his cheek, without moving a muscle. He lifted his hand to the same cheek, a look of surprise crossing his face.

"You have that much control?" His voice was breathless, and I began to feel uncomfortable with all three of them staring at me.

"I do, but only for a second or two. Enough to move something, or touch something, but not to actually hold on to anything. I don't think I could create a physical barrier of any kind, or restrain somebody for long. It takes an awful lot out of me."

"Well, we don't have time to stop for practice, so I think you're going to just have to see what you can do if it comes to it." Jasper sounded thoughtful, no doubt strategising, "I would think the most useful aspect of this as a weapon would be your ability to knock people away, and potentially throw things at them."

Edward and Jasper continued to discuss battle tactics, but I stopped paying attention fairly quickly. I accepted now that we would have to do what was necessary to protect Carlisle from Hudson, but I still didn't want to think about it. I wondered to myself why he was taking him into the forest outside of Wendle for this, when there were closer places they could have gone. I closed my eyes and said a silent prayer for Carlisle, I didn't know how any of us would go on without him. I prayed that he would be interesting enough to the Hunter for us to make it to him before he was destroyed.

Suddenly Tom Jones started blaring, filling the car with the song 'Sex Bomb', I looked round in time to see Emmett digging around in his pocket for his phone.

"Stylish Emmett." I sniped at him with good humour, making a mental note to make him turn his ringtone off as soon as he had answered the call.

He finally picked up, cutting Tom Jones off mid lyric, "Ness!"

"Hey Uncle Em, are Mom and Dad with you? Neither of them are answering their phones and I was getting worried." I heard Ness's voice coming down the line, I frowned as I realised that she'd not heard anything from us for a couple of days, and that both she and Esme must be going mad with worry.

"Yeah, no worries sweetie-pie, I'll put you on to your Mom. Bye!" Emmett tossed the phone at me; I snatched it out of the air with precision.

"Ness, honey, I'm sorry you were worried." The last thing I wanted was for her to worry, I mentally scolded myself for not making a point of phoning her, realising how terrified she must be. "Both of our phones are out of power, and the car charger has gone walkabout somewhere." In reality I hadn't seen my phone since Edward's fight with the Hunter on the rooftop in Calgary, and I knew that his had been smashed as we landed in the street afterwards.

"Mom, I've been going out of my mind, so has Nana." Ness had always called Esme, Nana. Something that I knew Esme absolutely adored. Being a Mother hen to century old vampires was one thing, but to be a Nana to Ness as she had grown up had been something else entirely

"We're ok, don't worry. We just have to get some things sorted out, and then we'll be coming straight up to you." _I hope_.

"Listen...." She paused and I knew she was going to tell me something she didn't think I was going to like, "I called Jake."

"Oh." I didn't quite know what to make of that, knowing as I did how glad Ness was to be away from Jake only a couple of days ago.

"I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry," I had not expressed any preference for Ness to either stay or leave when it came to Jake, I knew enough to stay well out of it. What with imprinting and a half vampire/werewolf relationship, I had no desire to further complicate things for my mature yet still terribly young daughter.

"He's on his way up to Denali and he's bringing his whole pack to protect us. As soon as I told him about the Hunter he wouldn't take no for an answer. He should be here soon." She still sounded unsure of herself, I wondered for a moment how mine and Edward's reaction to Jake's imprinting on her had affected their relationship.

"Well, good. Honey, anything that makes you feel safer makes me happier, I can't see one Hunter doing much against five werewolves." I didn't mention the Volturi to her, I couldn't bring myself to worry her further. "I love you baby."

"How long are you guys going to be?"

"Not long, two, maybe three days tops. Then we're going to have to talk about what we do next, but I think we'll probably be settling into Denali again for a while. Can you tell Tanya for us?"

"Sure, sure. I love you too Mom." I heard a slight hitch in her breathing and I knew she was crying.

"Why don't you say Hi to your Dad?" I passed the phone over to Edward who had been watching me throughout our call. His face unreadable.

"Hi Ness, so the mutt's coming up to Denali then?"

"Yes, don't call him that Dad, it's mean." Edward grinned as she spoke; he enjoyed teasing Ness about her werewolf.

"Hmmm, well, I agree with your Mom anyway, I'm glad he's coming." He paused for a second, glancing at me before continuing, "We won't be much longer. Your Mom and I were thinking we could take a trip soon actually. How do you feel about spending some time in Europe?"

"Wow, really? Cool!" Ness sounded like she had perked up remarkably at the idea of a trip. I decided that if we made it through this that had to be one of our first priorities.

"Really! Anyway, we have to run Ness. I love you." Edward's voice was cool and relaxed, but watching him, his eyes betrayed his sorrow as he said goodbye to our daughter, not sure if he would get to speak to her again.

"Yeah, me too Dad. Bye." I heard the phone go dead, but Edward held it to his ear for a couple of extra seconds before he tossed it over his shoulder back to Emmett.

I reached over and took his hand and our eyes met, both filled with matching sorrow at the thought that our beloved daughter may be about to lose all of us.

Suddenly to our right, the sign for the Wendle turnoff appeared. Edward followed Alice as she changed lanes, our cars now on a direct course for home. We followed Alice on a straight route through Wendle to the main house. I felt a twinge of sadness as we pulled up outside, the life we had planned to live here would never happen. I spent a split second imagining what it would have been like to watch Ness spend her final years of childhood in this house, before we parked and slipped quickly out of our cars and into the night.

The first thing we had all seen when we pulled up was Carlisle's Mercedes, and in an instant we were gathered around it, testing the air.

"Both Carlisle and the Hunter's scents are here, not long ago either." Edward sniffed the air and caught their trail, before making as if to follow them into the forest. However before he could move Jasper caught hold of him tightly.

"Wait, this might be a trap. Why have they come here?" He frowned for a moment, looking at Edward intensely. "We can't just rush in without a plan."

Edward glanced down at Jasper's hand, which was still on his arm, before shrugging it off gently. "Brother." He paused and looked around back to me before he spoke, "Even if it is a trap, it's Carlisle. We have to go." He shrugged his shoulders as he turned back to Jasper, with no trace of regret in his face, "Whatever happens tonight, I think we just have to take it as it comes."

With that Edward reached down and took my hand, before we all flitted towards the forest. Following Carlisle and the Hunter's scent to wherever it would lead us.

--

**A/N – This is may be one of those chapters where if I had an editor they would probably tell me to cut it, but instead I have an excellent Beta who humours me and just points out when I forget how to spell instead! Anyway, I like it so here it is. :)**

**Please feel free to leave a review and shout at me for not getting to rescue Carlisle yet, that was the plan, but they all just wouldn't stop yakking in the car! Sometimes it goes like that.... **

**Today is the last day to vote in the Sparkle awards if you wanted to......**

**Ria**


	23. The Stand

Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight!

Many thanks go to venomaddict for beta-ing this chapter, and for knowing what I'm trying to say when even I'm not so sure myself.

I don't like to leave warnings at the beginning of chapters, as what's the point in reading it if you know what's going to happen? All I'm going to say is, brace yourself

* * *

We ran for miles following Carlisle and the Hunter, moving faster and faster as we ran, and yet more time passed. Just as I was beginning to believe that we would never catch up with them we broke out of the forest, reaching the base of the mountains. And suddenly there, in a wide clearing before us, we found them.

From all around me I heard a terrible snarling break out, an inhuman noise made worse by the echoes bouncing back towards us from the mountains. To my right, Edward dropped into a predatory crouch, to my left I sensed Emmett, Rosalie, Jasper and Alice do the same, and the urge for me to follow was irresistible.

"Get back Carlisle!" Edward roared as he led us forward, moving slowly into position circling the two of them.

"Edward, wait!" Carlisle seemed unafraid, but I knew from bitter experience with the Hunter that this meant nothing.

Carlisle and Hudson were standing facing each other, maybe six feet apart. Their frames had been relaxed when we had arrived, but now both had dropped into stances mirroring our own.

As we watched, Carlisle slowly moved towards the Hunter, shielding his body from us with his own. "Seriously, wait. I'm here of my own free will; you all need to back down. NOW!"

I had never heard Carlisle take such control over the family, and in that moment he was the head of our coven, not our father. I glanced uncertainly from side to side; I saw Emmett, Rosalie, Jasper and Alice all ease upwards, watching Carlisle with trepidation. I began to follow, until my eyes rested on Edward, still crouched and now edging towards Carlisle again. I stopped moving, torn between doing as Carlisle had said and supporting Edward.

"You don't have a free will at the moment Carlisle; I'm not going to let this creature make you believe that you do." Edward spoke softly as he crept towards them, slowly but surely, a growl rumbling in his chest as he moved.

"I do. _Back down_ Edward." To my horror, as he spoke Carlisle slipped further into a crouch and began to stalk towards him, his eyes darkening as he prepared to attack.

They danced with each other, neither lunging, but at the same time neither backing down. Carlisle made sure he kept himself between Edward and the Hunter the whole time, and I could sense Edward's frustration growing as he nipped and darted from side to side, clearly trying to get a good angle to attack.

Meanwhile the rest of us watched, unwilling to disobey Carlisle, but all equally shocked by the turn of events playing out in front of us.

Suddenly Carlisle darted forwards and met Edward head on. There was a crash as if part of the mountains had fallen down at our feet, which echoed around us for seconds afterwards. They flew apart as quickly as they met, both of them tumbling across the floor away from each other.

In a split second both were on their feet again, and resumed their dance of defiance. Behind Carlisle, Hudson watched the scene playing out in front of him, his face a mask of calm. He caught my eye suddenly and lifted his eyebrow almost imperceptibly for the shortest of instants; the smirk that followed filled me with rage.

Suddenly I was distracted from the Hunter as Edward and Carlisle crashed together again, inhuman snarls coming from both of them as they somersaulted across the open expanse. There was a terrifying shrieking sound, which I recognised only too well, before they split apart, immediately returning to the circling stance of before.

"Carlisle, you don't want this." Edward was staring fixedly into Carlisle's eyes as he spoke, but I could see from where I stood that at that moment Carlisle was unreachable. His eyes were black and distant; to me he actually looked like a vampire for the first time in all the years I had known him. His age added to his countenance, and I was suddenly struck my how magnificently intimidating he was.

Carlisle simply snarled in response, and suddenly lunged for Edward's throat in a manner reminiscent of a newborn. Edward did not defend himself as he should have, his movements hindered by his desire to not harm Carlisle, and with another hideous screech I watched as Carlisle tore a lump out of Edward's throat.

I heard an ethereal wail rising, echoing around us once again. It took me a few seconds to realise that I was making it, but when I did I was finally able to tear my eyes away from the scene before me and look towards the sky.

How had this happened? Were we all going to stand here and watch as Edward and Carlisle destroyed each other? I finally understood that we were under the Hunter's control already, hypnotised into some kind of lacklustre stupor. I cursed myself for being distracted by the fight going on in front of me, remembering the constant concentration I had required to keep Hudson out of my mind previously. Only Edward had somehow escaped it, but he was now fighting a fight that there was no way he could win. I knew he would not allow himself to seriously harm Carlisle, but the fact he was holding back had already caused him severe injury.

Suddenly I felt a sharp wave of lust fly over me, before it vanished again just as quickly. After a millisecond of astonishment I guessed where it had come from and moved my eyes towards Jasper. His ability to manipulate my emotions was the only way he had to get my attention, as he was certainly under the Hunter's control as much as me. I was amused for an instant that he had chosen lust with which to effectively call me. Jasper was looking at me with a strange expression on his face, and when he caught my eye, a strong feeling of certainty, also clearly coming from Jasper, wormed its way into my mind. This was curious, as I had never been more uncertain in my whole life.

With what appeared to be great effort Jasper turned his head again towards the Hunter, who was watching the ongoing battle before us, and then he pointed with his chin towards the mountain.

Understanding and relief washed over me, and I was glad to find that these emotions were my own. Jasper had been able to find a way to tell me what I needed to do, when I was not in possession of enough of my senses to work it out for myself.

I focussed on the spectacle in front of me, using the rage I was experiencing to build and strengthen the power in my shield. I narrowed it down to a tiny point in my mind, then threw it out as powerfully and as sharply as I could manage, hitting the Hunter directly in the middle of the chest and hurling him towards the sheer rock face half a mile behind him.

There was a sound almost like an explosion as he hit the rock, dust and rubble flying hundreds of feet into the air. At the same time I felt the vice which had so subtly crept into my mind loosen, and allow me to fall to my knees, released. Beside me I felt rather than saw my brothers and sisters do the same, Alice falling forwards into my line of vision, landing flat out on her face in the dirt.

The sounds of fighting stopped, but I didn't have the energy at that moment to look up to check what had happened. In my mind I was reeling in my shield, pulling back to me the almost physical entity that I had just used to smash the Hunter into the rock, freeing us at the same time.

Quickly I sensed movement all around me, and then strong hands lifting me by my shoulders. "Bella, are you with me?"

I looked up to see Edward staring into my face, his eyes full of concern. "Yes, just... regrouping." My voice sounded harsh in my own ears, with the musical tone gone I almost recognised my human self in it for a moment. I looked over his shoulder to see Carlisle laying spread eagled on the ground. Beside us I saw Emmett and Rosalie pulling themselves to their feet, as Jasper was gently easing Alice up from the ground.

I looked back to Edward, and was horrified to see venom oozing down his throat from a gaping hole torn right where his jugular vein should be. "Edward...." I reached out and cupped his throat on the opposite side to his injury, more aware now of how much pain he must be in than I was last time he had been injured.

He covered my hand with his own as he closed his eyes for an instant. "Carlisle was fighting like a newborn; the Hunter had taken most of his mind away from him. He was not defending himself at all, just attacking."

"Is he ok?" Jasper had started to approach Carlisle warily, as if he actually were a newborn.

"His mind is scattered. When Bella knocked out the Hunter it seemed to release you all from his hold, but Carlisle had so completely gone over to him that when the connection broke it did him more harm. I can hear his thoughts beginning to gather, but it might take a little time." Edward was watching Carlisle as he spoke, his concern palpable.

"Time is the one thing we haven't got." Alice barely whispered, and I recognised the sick look on her face. She was leaning against Jasper, looking as if she could hardly find the strength to stand, but still her eyes were clouded, seeing what only she could see.

"How long?" Edward looked far from defeated, our victory over the Hunter in fact buoying all of our spirits, even in the face of the Volturi.

"Fifteen minutes. They'll meet us here, they will come in exactly the same way we did; they're following our scents now."

"Can we run?" The look on Alice's face told us the answer before the words were even out of Jasper's mouth.

"No. Our only chance is to stand here and fight. It isn't certain that we will all die today, it will come down to Bella."

I felt my heart sink as every face turned to me. I could feel my family's lives in my hands and the weight seemed to be too much to bear.

There was a quiet moan suddenly coming from behind us, and we all looked up to see Carlisle rolling almost in slow motion from his back to his front. In an instant we were all around him, Edward crouched down by his side, taking his hand.

"Carlisle, can you hear me?"

"Edward?" He whispered so quietly we could barely hear him, but as his eyes opened we could see that Carlisle was still in there somewhere.

"I'm here. Can you stand?"

"Maybe... not yet. What happened?"

"We were hoping that maybe you could tell us that. Why did you go with him Carlisle?" Edward was stroking his father's hair out of his face as he spoke softly to him.

"He wanted to understand how we live; how we can exist alongside humans and not be a threat to them. He seemed so reasonable..." Carlisle's eyes closed, and his consciousness seemed to drift. We stood and waited for him to come around again, but after a moment Jasper pulled Edward's arm and dragged us all a few feet away.

"We don't have time for this now. We only number six and Alice has seen up to thirty coming for us, we have to work out if there's anything we can do." It was silent as Jasper spoke, each of us simply unable to comprehend how six of us could possibly face thirty members of the Volturi guard.

After no one spoke for a few moments Jasper continued. "Bella, how much can you move with your mind, I know I'm asking a lot, but you're our only hope."

"Way to pile on the pressure Jasper. Look at her, she's a wreck." I glared at Emmett as he spoke, but it was undeniable. The pressure I felt, knowing that the only possible chance we had to survive lay with me, was enormous.

"Can you even do it while you're shielding us? Jane and Alec will both be here." Alice was speaking quickly as Jasper cut in again.

"We have no chance hand to hand, but maybe it would be better for her not to shield us if she can't, then use her new power against them."

"Then we are at the witch twins' mercy, that's just stupid Jasper!" Rosalie yelled over the top of him, scowling furiously. "You'll effectively be leaving Bella to face them on her own!"

"Then what do you suggest Rosalie?"

"I suggest we get the hell out of here, standing around fighting amongst ourselves isn't doing us any good."

Their voices all began to mingle with each other as I listened, the underlying message clear; we would live or die based on me alone. The overbearing responsibility felt crushing, and I began to wonder whether when it came to it, would I be able to do anything at all, or simply stand and watch as the people I loved died?

"ENOUGH!" I jerked in surprise as Edward's snarl cut into the bickering around me. "Bella, look at me love."

I realised that my eyes were glued to the floor at my feet, and I snapped them up quickly to meet his.

"Tell us what to do."

I thought for a moment, flexing my shield and considering. I was fairly confident that I could protect them with my shield at the same time as moving things with it. Every time I used my new gift it seemed to become stronger somehow, and I knew that it in some way fed from my emotions. I guessed that they would be fairly powerful when the time came to face the Volturi.

"I can do both." I was surprised for a second to hear my own voice, not having really thought about what I was going to say yet. "The only question is; what do I move? A vampire won't be so easily dispatched as the Hunter."

"You could throw boulders at them, there are plenty around us. Can you move them?" Jasper was looking at me questioningly as he spoke, almost hesitating to finally understand how big an advantage I could be in the coming battle.

Without saying a word I reached out and picked up a dozen boulders. I was not surprised to find that it was no more effort to pick up many of them than only one. I felt their mass in my mind, but there was no weight to bear.

My mind seemed to be becoming detached from my body, speaking was becoming more and more of an effort. I realised that as my shield grew in strength, the more I struggled to see my own way through it. I remembered the sensation of being trapped by it in the hospital room, and worried for an instant about whether that could happen again. I dismissed the thought for the moment, knowing that now was not the time to worry about it.

I juggled the boulders in the air around us, each of them physically made up of several tonnes of rock, before guiding them to the ground in a pile to one side of us, like snow balls piled up at the ready in a schoolyard.

"What difference would they really make though?" My voice still sounded distant and emotionless, but no one seemed to notice, maybe thinking that it was fear leading to my coldness. "They would be no more than a distraction. We need fire."

"Of course!" Jasper began to pace madly, an idea forming in his mind. "How long Alice?"

"Nine minutes."

"We build a pyre, between us and the forest. Bella can throw members of the guard into it, they might be able to escape as they won't be torn up, but at least it will hurt them, it may _just_ be enough."

Without another word each of us began on the task at hand, Jasper and Emmett ripping a hole in the ground at least a quarter of a mile across. Dirt flew hundreds of feet into the air as they tore through the earth like bullets. We were shielded from the forest, but also trapped between the side of a mountain and what was soon to be a wall of flame.

The rest of us focussed on ripping trees from the ground, spruces mainly, filled with sap that would burn even while the trees were green. We filled the hole, piling tree on top of tree, at the same time Edward worked furiously trying to get it to burn.

Within minutes flames began to lick at the trees in front of us, but there was no way that the fire would be hot enough by the time the guard arrived to cause any serious damage. I hoped it would at least draw their attention enough to give us some kind of advantage.

We lined up, fifty feet away from the wall of flames growing in front of us, each of my family side by side, only myself set back from them, in a position of protection. I had tried to convince them to allow me to stand by their sides, but all of them had insisted that the moment I fell, we were all lost, so my positioning was really for all their sakes, not my own.

We had moved Carlisle back to a protected spot at the foot of the mountain. He was still not in his right mind, but coherent enough to understand what was happening. He would be unable to defend himself if the guard reached him, so he was placed behind me, as by the time the guard would have reached that point it would be too late anyway.

"How long Alice?" I was so focussed on what lay ahead of us that I was not even sure who had spoken, but I trembled as she replied.

"They're here. But something has changed; there are less of them than there should be."

As she spoke the guard stepped out from the trees, lining up in a mirror to the position we had taken on the other side of the pyre. I counted their number, and then counted again to be sure. There were only twelve members before us. I looked down the line, and found only two faces I recognised, the rest of the vampires I had never seen before.

In the centre of the formation stood Caius, his white hair flickering in the breeze, on his left was Alec, both of them wearing matching smiles as they drew to a halt.

I checked for the thousandth time that my shield was secure around my family, as I felt Alec try to push through it to attack us. I found it was strong; and my confidence grew as I felt him give up quickly, after confirming that he would have no effect in my presence.

Caius took a single step forwards and addressed us. "There is no need for you all to die today. We have come _only_ for the criminals. Edward and Bella, we will let your family go if you submit to us willingly." The look on his face could only be described as sheer delight, knowing all too well that no deal along those lines would ever be brokered between any of us.

"Yeah right." Alice muttered; I saw her and Edward exchange a glance before he turned to face Caius.

"We are all prepared to fight today Caius, and you know that we are not powerless against you."

"There will be no negotiation today." Caius lifted his arm and brought it down in an action clearly commencing the attack. The guard flitted forwards in the same second, approaching the flames without fear.

I took my chance and caught hold of as many of them as I could in my shield and threw them into the flaming pyre. The air was suddenly filled with inhuman shrieks and the smell of incense, as the vampires began to burn. I was unable to hold them for any length of time as they struggled, and as quickly as I could throw them to the flames they would escape, singed but mostly unharmed.

This went on for only three or four seconds until the first members of the guard made it onto our side of the flames, bearing down on us with teeth bared. Each and every one of them was headed towards me, their plan of attack neatly matching our own plan of defence.

The surge of movement around me was almost impossible to follow, even with vampire senses. I was still throwing guard members away into the flames, but I could see that without incapacitating them it was making very little difference.

Suddenly I felt a presence beside me.

"I take it that these are the bad guys." I recognised the voice immediately as that of the Hunter. I didn't turn to look at him, focussed still on pushing away as many of the guards as I could, but I asked him the only question that really mattered at that point.

"Are you with us or against us?"

"I'm against all of you, but I guess if I'm picking sides...." He leapt forward, joining the melee before me, taking on the guard member who had been charging towards me the instant before.

I was unable to move. The mental drain of shielding everyone, as well as repeatedly knocking away attacking guard members, left me nothing with which to either attack, or to even defend myself. I could only stand and watch as my family fought, Jasper alone taking on three members of the guard singlehandedly, trying as best he could to protect Alice at the same time.

More guards finally surged across the flames, followed inevitably by Caius and Alec, who both hung back, avoiding the vicious battle raging. Suddenly I was distracted from them as a guard member appeared in front of me, unstopped by my family who were otherwise occupied.

I heard their roars as they saw I was threatened, knowing all of their lives relied on me at this moment, but it was Rosalie who reached me first. She tore his hands away from my shoulders and hurled him towards the flames. Before she could turn back to defend herself, the guards she had been fighting previously caught her from behind, and hoisted her high in the air.

There was a high pitched screech, and Caius stepped forward with his arm raised. A bolt of flame shot from the staff in his hand, hitting Rosalie squarely in the chest, destroying her in a plume of smoke and flames in an instant, only yards from where I stood.

Screams and howls of outrage boomed around us, one of which was coming from me, but before I had a chance to recover Edward was hurtling towards me, knocking another member of the guard off of his feet as he shot in my direction. They slid across the ground together, tumbling over and over, perilously close to the flames.

An action replay of the scene moments ago begun to play out as Edward was caught from behind by two guards and hurled upwards, towards Caius's outstretched arm.......

"NO!" I screeched as the flames shot towards Edward, in the instant before they touched him I caught him in my mind and dragged him towards me, away from the shot that Caius had taken. He was hurt, but I didn't have time to do anything, as Caius was moving towards both of us unhindered now, the guard and our family fighting around us.

I fell to my knees beside Edward. He was lying on the floor with venom pouring out of wounds across his whole body. I knew that this could be the end, however much I pushed and pulled at our enemy it would never be enough. I laid my hand on his chest, and for a millisecond prepared for death.

Caius reached out again, holding the staff above us which would condemn us both to ashes. His eyes glinted with satisfaction, the pleasure he was taking in our destruction plain for all to see. With that my fury returned; I found the last ounce of strength within me, and decided to fight.

I reached out towards him with my shield, only instead of flinging him away I stared into his eyes as I wrapped his mind deep within my own. The intrusion was shocking, having an enemy within my mind made me feel violated in a way that was almost beyond comprehension. Unsure of exactly what I was doing, I reflexively used my mind to squeeze tightly, solidifying my shield as I did, and suddenly I felt his mental presence vanish, as if I had blown out a flame.

His head was thrown back, a solitary keening sound emanating from his lips as he froze like a statue in front of me. I searched for his consciousness, but could find nothing. The marble body stood before us was no more than an empty shell.

Alec had been standing beside him, and it seemed to take him a second to understand that Caius had effectively been destroyed. As realisation hit him, his eyes opened wide, the cruel smile he had been wearing changing into a look of disbelief. In the same instant I reached out again, sucking his mind in and pinching it out with my own, extinguishing it in an instant, my rage making this seem to be almost no effort at all. The new solid wall in my mind showed no sign of weakening as I crushed their mental presences, a combination of physical and mental attack on my part.

Suddenly the other members of the guard began to notice that something was happening, and the battle slowed as everyone looked over towards us. I immediately began to reach out and crush each mind in turn; starting with the now four guards that Jasper was fighting. I could see that he had been injured, and he looked the most in danger of all of them in that moment.

I swiftly moved on, and within seconds all twelve of the guard we had engaged, stood as motionless as the marble statues they had previously only resembled. My family were not in much better shape.

Edward was at my feet, venom oozing from him. The flow was slowing now, and I fell to my knees and began to try and heal his wounds with my own venom, as I knew I could. Jasper and Alice were in each other's arms, as I watched, I saw Jasper begin to tend to their wounds as I was doing with Edward.

Hudson was nowhere to be seen, he had been there only moments before, but now he was gone.

Emmett lay face down on the floor, on the precise spot Rosalie had fallen; I could hear him whispering to her as he sobbed. I tore my eyes away from him, not wanting to intrude in his grief, at the same time trying to set my own to one side as I focussed on Edward.

I was fascinated by the almost magical properties that our venom seemed to hold, and quickly managed to stop the flow of the precious liquid from his body using my own venom to seal his injuries, which were extensive.

"Edward, can you hear me?" I spoke as I continued to work on him, in my mind feeling as if I might go mad if he was unable to respond to me.

"Yes, I can hear you." He began to move under me, his strength returning slowly as I worked.

"Are you going to be able to move?"

"I think so, once you've finished. Did you do that?" He nodded towards Caius only yards away from us, frozen as if ready to attack us.

"Yes. I crushed his mind." It felt an almost bizarre thing to admit to, and the enormity of what I had just done suddenly struck me. I hadn't just destroyed guard members, I had destroyed Caius himself. In that moment I realised that the remaining members would not let this lie until every last Cullen was destroyed.

"Is he dead?" Edward seemed to be having as much difficulty absorbing what had happened as I was. His confusion, I was sure, was only exacerbated by the loss of venom and the injuries that he had suffered.

"He's gone, there's nothing there anymore. There's nothing left in any of them."

"We have to burn them."Jasper's voice broke into our conversation, and I looked up to find him and Alice looming above us.

Without another word he began to gather up the Volturi and throw them into the pyre we had made, now burning fiercely. After a few moments Edward stood, still rather shaky, and joined him. They didn't bother to tear the bodies into pieces; simply throwing them into the flames and watching them burn.

As they worked, the absence of Emmett and Rosalie was like a searing hole through each of us. Our unit of six had been broken down irreversibly by the loss of a sister, and the insurmountable grief of a brother. I felt the shock of what had happened finally hit me as I replayed the moment she was torn away from me over and over in my head. I tortured myself with the question; could I have saved her as I had saved Edward?

I had stood, not knowing what to do next, and simply watched as Edward and Jasper carried out their gruesome task. By my side Alice seemed far away, her eyes distant. By the time Edward and Jasper had thrown all of the bodies into the flames she had returned to herself, but she seemed confused.

"It changed, that wasn't all of them." Her voice quivered, I could see she was teetering on the edge of something and I reached my hand out to comfort her.

"What do you mean?" I asked as Edward and Jasper approached. Emmett was still lying on the ground and I did not see any movement from him to betray he may have heard her.

"Up until an hour or so before they arrived, there were more of them, over twenty. Jane and Demitri were there. Where are they?" She looked to each one of us expectantly, and then swung around to look at the trees, as if she expected them to appear there at any moment.

"No!" Edward spun around in a blur to face Jasper.

"It's what I would have done."

"_No_." Edward's face crumpled; full of utter despair which made my insides squirm.

"What?" I couldn't stand it. From the look on Edward's face I knew something was terribly wrong.

"You were shielding us six weren't you?" Jasper spoke slowly, as if he were thinking the unthinkable.

"Yes."

"So how would Demitri have been able to find us? He would have been completely blind to our whereabouts. He would have only been able to track other members from our family, on the expectation that we were with them." Jasper was still speaking slowly, making me feel enormously frustrated, but he was obviously only just figuring out what had happened for himself.

"He must have tracked Carlisle to come to this place." I said as Jasper nodded. Edward was moving up and down behind us, not seeming to listen to what was being said.

"Hoping we were with him, but Bella, there was somewhere else we could have been, someone else to track."

My mind reeled as I understood what he was saying. "Ness and Esme..." If vampires could faint I would have done so at that moment, but as no welcome blackness came to take me, I could only stare at Jasper in horror.

"The wolves are with them.... I can't see anything." Alice wailed as she looked in horror at Jasper, "But they can't have reached them yet, they only made the decision to split up a short while before they reached us."

"Ness." I could only manage a whisper, horror stealing any volume I had.

"This isn't finished." Jasper said as I felt Edward appear close at my side.

"We have to hurry." I slipped my hand into his as Edward spoke, he looked exhausted, but there was no time for rest now.

We all turned and surveyed the horror all around. Great plumes of incense scented smoke drifted across the valley before us as our enemies burned. At the edge of the pyre, Emmett had still not moved, shaking slightly as he lay where our sister had fallen whilst defending me. We looked between us for an instant, knowing that one of us needed to go to him, but that his grief would be unbearable twinned with our own.

After an endless moment, Jasper approached him, placing his hand on his shoulder. Emmett shook him off roughly, rolling over to look at us for the first time since the battle ended.

"Fuck off Jasper. My grief is all I have." His voice broke in a sob, as I felt a sob build up in my own chest.

"You heard us Emmett, we have to go. Rosalie would want you to protect Ness above all else. You know she would." Jasper hovered above him, keeping his distance, whether he feared Emmett was about to lash out, or he was struggling with his emotions, I couldn't tell.

"She's dead Jazz, she's dead."

"She died to save us. She _saved_ us Emmett. No one else could have reached Bella in time. If she hadn't we all would have died." Jasper cringed as another sob shook through Emmett, but then he stood tall again. "There are still more of them Emmett, she would have wanted us to take them all down."

In an almost invisible movement Emmett was on his feet, his expression crazed with grief. "You're right. And they're mine."

I felt a surge of relief as he stood, knowing that time was of the essence. Once again we had to run, to save my daughter while there was still time.

I suddenly felt a presence behind me, the others must have felt it too as we turned to face it as one. There stood Carlisle, his sanity seemingly returned to him. He grimaced as he looked at Edward, clearly remembering where he had received some of the injuries he now bore. By his side stood Hudson, who I could only assume was the reason that Carlisle was even able to stand already.

"Room for two more?" Hudson's face was grim, but determined.

There were nods, but there was no more time for discussion. Now numbering seven, it was time to run again – but this time, it would be us that would be doing the hunting.

**A/N – We're nearly there folks, leave me a review and I'll try and get the next one out a bit quicker!**


	24. The Wolves Defiant

Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight!

Kudos to my Beta venomaddict, without whom I would still be banging my head against the screen over this chapter.

* * *

It took us nearly ten hours to reach the outskirts of Denali National Park. Even at insane speeds, the two thousand miles we had to travel were still an enormous distance. We were all mostly silent throughout our journey, not able to even think about what we may find when we finally reached Tanya's home.

Earlier, as soon as we had left the scene of our battle with Caius, I had used Carlisle's phone to dial a number that I had grown out of the habit of calling myself, but had remained the same from a time when I had known it as well as my own.

"Hello?" Relief flooded my mind as Jake answered, sounding as calm as ever.

"Jake, it's Bella."

"Bells, what's the matter?" My tone was clearly enough to put him on full alert, his voice suddenly the commanding voice of the Alpha.

"You've got incoming. We're on our way, but they're going to get to you before we do." I was speaking as I ran the last few miles towards home and the cars, I was sure he would be able to hear the wind rushing past me as I moved.

"Who?"

"The Volturi. There's a lot of them Jake, but Alice can't be sure how many now your furry asses are in the way."

"There's a lot of us too, Sam came up with me. There are seventeen wolves patrolling the park as we speak. Well, ok, sixteen. But I'm having a break." I could hear Ness in the background asking him what was going on, and I wondered for a second exactly what he was doing on his break.

"Don't try and fight them Jake, please. No one else has to die today. Just batten down the hatches and be prepared to wait for us."

"No one else?" Jacob's voice suddenly quivered, I'd heard a small cry in the background as I spoke, Ness obviously having caught what I said.

There was a tumult on the other end of the line for a few seconds, someone clearly trying to wrestle the phone out of Jacob's hand. Finally I heard Ness on the other end of the line.

"Get off of me Jake! Mom, Mom, are you ok?" Ness sobbed down the line at me. My arms ached for her, and I suddenly realised that this was the furthest apart we had ever been. I instinctively ducked my head and pushed myself to run a little bit faster, almost catching up with Edward who was leading the seven of us as we ran.

"I'm ok baby." I couldn't hide the pain in my voice though, and I heard her sob harder down the phone.

"Nh.....Is D....Dad... Is Dad...?" She couldn't get her words out through her tears, and my heart broke listening to her. I couldn't believe I was going to have to give her this news over the phone.

"Your Dad is fine, well, he's taken some damage, but he's fine." I took a deep breath to steady myself, "The Volturi are here. We fought some of them outside of Calgary, but we destroyed them."

"You f.... fought the Volturi?" She made a strange hiccupping sound as she spoke, obviously trying to collect herself.

"Yes, but we won baby... There are more headed your way. You have to all be ready to defend yourselves. We're already on our way, just don't let the wolves do anything stupid." I knew that I was asking a lot of her, but I also knew that Ness was essentially part of Edward, and that she could deal with this much better than Esme could.

"You said _no one else_ had to die Mom." I heard the question in her statement, and knew I had to tell her.

"Rosalie..... didn't make it... She saved us all." I looked over towards Emmett's direction, running along with his head down, not even seeming to look where he was going. "She was so brave."

At the other end of the line there was a wail, followed by the crash of the phone hitting the ground. I could hear voices in the background for a moment, before Jacob was on the other end again.

"I'd better go and let everyone know what's going on Bells..... I'm sorry about Rosalie."

"Thanks Jake. Look after Ness for me. We'll be there as soon as we can... Please don't let me lose anyone else I love today." I was watching Edward as I spoke; from behind of course as I'd still not managed to catch up with him. He suddenly turned and looked at me for an instant without even breaking step, and I saw the same desperation in his eyes that I was sure was in mine.

The phone went dead in my hand and I put it in my pocket. As I did we arrived at the cars and began the next stage of our race towards Denali.

The ten hours in the cars were agonising. Despite the fact that this was clearly the fastest way to travel, the urge to run had been overwhelming. The feeling of sitting inactive in the car had almost driven me insane, and the moment we had stepped out into the snowy outskirts of the Denali National Park, a new sense of urgency hit me.

I leapt from the car and began to move as fast as I could, a bullet through the ice headed in a straight line towards my daughter. Before I could make more than a dozen steps though, I found myself held in place by Jasper, his arms locked tightly around my waist as I struggled against him.

I turned around to see Edward holding Emmett in a similar manner, while the others stood anxiously and watched.

We were standing beside an enormous snow drift built up against the mountainside, covering what should have been the road towards the centre of the park, and Tanya's house. Ahead of me lay miles of forest, the tree's boughs weighed down with snow and ice.

"Bella, we have to be smart about this. We won't help Ness if we go in all guns blazing and get ourselves killed." Jasper was looking at Emmett as he spoke, and I could feel an overwhelming grief breaking into my psyche, which I was fairly sure wasn't actually mine.

"Let me go!" Emmett was wrestling himself away from Edward, who was struggling to hold our bear of a brother, especially weakened as he was by our earlier battle.

As they wrestled, Hudson stepped alongside Edward and helped him restrain Emmett. After a moment more of pushing them away, he slumped his shoulders in resignation, accepting for the moment that he wasn't going anywhere.

Meanwhile the panic in my stomach had grown to a foaming mass, desperate to get to Ness. "Jasper, they might already be at Tanya's place. Ness is in danger." I knew he must be able to feel my panic, and also the anger I felt at his restraint which was beginning to build up inside of me. My cub was threatened, and my inner lioness had been roused.

"I know, but without you we are all lost, so you have to allow us to protect you as we move. If you go tearing off and get yourself killed you won't be helping Ness." His tone was calming, but ironically it only added to the anger building up inside of me.

Before I even decided to do it, I flung my rage and my terror for my daughter outwards, knocking Jasper away from me with my shield as easily as swatting a fly. The force continued onwards, the power I wielded seeming to grow every time I used it.

I watched in awe as a large swathe of forest in front of me was decimated into matchsticks. Dozens of trees were catapulted hundreds of feet into the air, along with tonnes of earth and rock from the ground which had nurtured them. I felt the ground beneath my feet jerk as I ripped into it, carving a scar almost a mile long away from me, in the direction of my daughter.

A moment later the trees I had ripped from the ground came crashing back to earth like thunder, making the ground shake yet again. Earth showered down on top of us, and for a second I felt my mind running away from me; the thin connection between myself and my shield stretching my psyche until I felt certain I would shatter.

But before I even had time to truly feel it, my shield snapped back into place, and I was whole again. The only testament to what had just happened, the violent devastation of the forest in front of us.

I searched desperately for Jasper, terrified of what I could have done to him, caught in the tornado I had created in the previous instant. I found him no more than ten feet away from me, unruffled but bearing a look of incredulity matched by the rest of my family standing around me. I hoped that the control I had showed in protecting Jasper during my mental and physical brainstorm was a sign that I would gain more control over my new gifts, otherwise I was a ticking time-bomb.

A sharp stab of fear bit into me, the damage I had done was so massive, but yet completely unintentional. What the hell was I capable of now? What kind of monster had I become?

As the echoes of the destruction I had just caused reverberated around us, there was silence, and I could feel all eyes on me. As usual it was Emmett who broke it.

"I don't think Bella's going to be getting herself killed Jasper. Let's just fucking get on with it."

Without another word we set off in a run, I found myself flanked by Jasper on one side and Emmett on the other. Edward ran ahead, while Carlisle, Alice and Hudson ran behind us, surrounding me in a perfect circle of protection.

For a few moments I continued to be irritated by the need they all felt to protect me, but I quickly accepted it, knowing that by protecting me they were also protecting themselves, and each other.

We ran through the ice of Alaska. The snow was thick, and would have massively impeded the movements of humans as they sank into it with each footstep. But the speed we were moving at prevented this from happening, and so we flew across the snow, seven sets of footsteps barely even leaving a mark; ghosts in the early morning light. The sun rose as we ran, the beautiful pinks of the sunrise reflected in the white of the snow before us.

The minutes it took us to reach Tanya's home seemed to last a lifetime. None of us spoke, or even looked at each other. I had considered calling Ness using a cell phone, but my urge to reach her overrode that idea, so I just ran.

Certainly sooner than it felt, I began to recognise the area we were in. Swathes of forest we had hunted in and were familiar to me acted as a sign that we were close, but quickly I no longer needed these signs of proximity, as the distant echoes of battle began to tremble in my ears.

The first sounds we could hear were high pitched wolf howls, from maybe forty or fifty miles away. Another ten miles closer I could hear the roars and bellows of vampires in battle. Every sound made us run faster, frustrated now that we had been unable to take the cars any further into the park due to the snow, but moving at incredible speeds nonetheless.

Finally as we approached Edward spoke. "I can hear Ness's thoughts. She's afraid for the wolves, but not herself yet." The relief on his face was catching, and despite the danger I knew our friends were in, I allowed myself a moment of respite from the unbearable horror I had been feeling not knowing how my daughter was, or even if she was still alive.

One or two minutes later we burst through the fringe of the forest, only to come onto a battle scene in the area surrounding the enormous wooden home of the Denali clan.

Tanya's house stood alone in a large snow filled clearing, with forest around on all sides. The forest began maybe seven or eight hundred yards away from the house at the front, and around the entire area of the grounds around the building, battle raged.

There were at least twenty members of the Volturi guard, deep in combat with the wolves. Around the scene I could see three separate fires melting the snow they stood on, the plumes of incense scented smoke indicating that not all of the Volturi were still standing by now.

But I felt my heart lurch when I counted three mounds of unmoving fur littered around the ground, ignored by the seething masses around them for the most part. One wolf that I didn't immediately recognise was curled up by the edge of the forest, to the right of us but almost directly where we had come out of it. Another lay towards the house, almost by the front door, I could see the gasping breaths it was pulling in, and with a jolt I realised that the grey wolf who was struggling to breathe was in fact Leah.

The third unmoving wolf lay in the middle of the battle field, in a slowly spreading pool of blood. I could see from where I stood that the large mass of black fur was not breathing, and I realised that it was dead. The Volturi must have been studying the enemy, and known to take out the pack the first step was to take out the Alpha. I knew the loss of Sam must have affected the pack greatly, and their ability to fight must now be being compromised.

I tried to watch and think impersonally, knowing that we needed to intervene, but much of my mind was crippled for a moment by the knowledge that Sam was dead.

In the instant it had taken me to assess the situation, both Emmett and Hudson had charged into the fray; Emmett with a blood chilling cry, that didn't sound like it could have come from a creature with his sanity intact.

Hudson did not engage, though. He was moving around the battle field watching intently, and as he did I noticed the vampires he was near begin to lose focus in their fighting.

I shook my head violently, trying to make myself concentrate on my surroundings. I looked around me and I found myself standing between Edward and Jasper, with Carlisle and Alice standing by their sides respectively. We stood almost as observers, none of the Volturi paying attention to our presence yet as they battled the wolves. I could see no sign of Ness or Esme, or any of the Denalis for that matter, but I could see that the metal shutters on the side of the house had been closed down. I hoped they would continue to hide out in the house, as right now there was enough confusion in the scene before us.

The sounds of battle were overwhelming, the almost invisible movements would have seemed graceful if it weren't for the roars and the growls and the tearing sounds coming from the dance before us.

"They're going for the Alpha's" Edward said, clearly picking up from the Volturi's thoughts, what I had surmised from seeing Sam dead before me.

"Jake!" I cursed myself for not thinking of it sooner, but I began to search the heaving masses for my once best friend.

"He's here, I can hear him." Edward looked around as I did, and after an instant he pointed in the direction of what could only be described as a pile of wolves and vampires, moving so quickly it was almost impossible to differentiate one from another. "There."

"Is he ok?" I hardly dared ask, I knew Edward would be able to hear from his thoughts how bad things were.

"He's hurt, but he's not going down without a fight... all he's thinking about is Ness." Edward grabbed my hand and dragged me towards him. "You have to get him out of there Bella, he's not going to last long."

I froze as I realised what he was saying. I knew that I had no time to lose, and yet, I was unable to act. My eyes were focussed intently upon the fight, watching in horror as four vampires converged upon one wolf in particular; the last of the Alphas.

They attacked as one, barrelling into Jake and knocking him a hundred feet across the battlefield in an instant, rolling so fast that I couldn't tell wolf from vampire. The noise as they hit him was sickening, the crunching sound echoing around us for seconds afterwards, the injuries he must have suffered in that moment, undeniable.

It was impossible to see the extent of the damage he had taken, but the ferocity with which he returned their attack filled me with hope that all was not yet lost. It gave me the spur I needed, and it was with relief that I realised what I had to do.

I reached out with my mind, and found I could easily locate Jake. I dragged him out of the fight before us and in a moment the large russet brown wolf was on the ground behind us, gasping for breath and bleeding. He made no effort to move, and I could hear his heart racing unnaturally in his chest. Alice darted backwards to tend to him, now leaving four of us standing on the sidelines.

I was still reeling inside, every second that passed caused more injury to the wolves, and it was obvious from what was happening before us that, given enough time, the Volturi would defeat them. We had been standing watching the battle for maybe twenty or thirty seconds, I couldn't honestly be sure, but now we were here I had no idea what we should do next.

The vampires who had previously been attacking Jake had split up, and were now fighting against others in the pack. Every wolf that was still standing by this point was up against at least two vampires; I could see Paul to my right now being overwhelmed by three of them, the Beta to Sam's Alpha; the next biggest target after Jake.

Another wolf had fallen close to the house, and I couldn't hold in the gasp of horror when I realised that Embry was also dead, his throat torn out and bleeding into the snow close to where Leah lay, still panting in quick breaths. I could see a sandy coloured wolf dragging itself across the ground towards them, too badly injured to stand. It was Seth, still trying to make it towards Leah, even while he was injured.

The fight was quickly becoming an extermination. None of the vampires looked in any danger from the wolves, and some of them were beginning to taunt the pack as they fought, a sure sign that they believed their battle was won. It would be over in a few short moments, and then the Volturi's attention would turn to us.

"What do we do? I don't want anyone else to die today." I looked quickly between Jasper and Edward, searching for answers.

"Destroy the Volturi, before they have the chance to do any more damage. You know how Bella." Jasper urged me, his eyes wild, following Emmett who was creating a swathe of destruction through the vampires before us with no care for his own safety. He was on a suicide mission, and even I could see he wasn't going to last long attacking without thought.

Edward was nodding as he spoke "Now Bella. Let's not take any risks, destroy them before they can kill any more of the pack."

"I don't want anyone else to die today..." I croaked the words out, knowing that what they were saying to me was the right thing, the safest thing for my family and friends, but I didn't know if I could destroy anyone else today and keep my sanity. Death is death, and killing is killing, and I already felt irreversibly scarred by the lives I had taken outside of Calgary.

"Hurry Bella, the wolves are falling." Jasper moved into my line of sight as he spoke, the urgency clear in his voice. Behind him I could see the wolves had little time left, but I still couldn't make myself begin the killing. The remaining wolves had gathered in a circle, gaining strength by standing together, but still the vampires were breaking into their ranks easily, tearing holes in their protective stances.

I could feel clenching in my chest and stomach, and I realised that if I still could I would most likely vomit about now. I had to save them, I knew that only I could, but I also knew that the last shred of my sanity would not survive the slaughter I would need to perpetrate to do so.

"Separate them Bella." Carlisle flitted forwards and put himself between me and Jasper, his eyes calming me down in an instant. "No one else needs to die today."

"What are you talking about Carlisle? This is war! We take out the enemy before they do the same to us." Jasper tried to push him out of the way, but Carlisle stood tall.

"Think about what you're asking her to do." Carlisle seemed to grow in stature as he spoke, his seniority in our family not forgotten even after the events of the last few hours.

"I'm asking her to save us and the wolves; you know she can do it."

"You're asking her to commit murder again and again and again. What would that do to anyone Jasper, let alone Bella?"

I was barely listening to this argument as it raged, all at lightning speed, unsure of even what I wanted. The battle that was warring inside me only seemed to be making matters worse. A part of me agreed with Jasper, albeit a small part. I knew that I must protect the ones I loved, but at what cost?

Could I really push my conscience aside and commit such an act, especially when I knew it was wrong? But I couldn't deny that the outcome would ensure the safety of my family and the rest of the pack. Is protecting them a crime? My mental exertions over the last day or so had left me exhausted. I just couldn't trust my judgement to be the right call, and this fact frightened me.

Another part of me was utterly distracted by my worry for Jake. I still hadn't heard any movement from behind me, and I dreaded to think about how badly injured he could be. I could hear weak gurgling breaths coming from his direction, so I knew he was alive. What I didn't know was; how long for?

Paralysed by fear, and unable to make any kind of decision for myself, I stood quietly waiting to be told what to do. I knew that I would obey their directions without question, whatever the consequences may be to myself afterwards.

I looked towards Edward, as Jasper and Carlisle continued to argue before me. He was watching me, his eyes narrow and worried.

"Win or lose, it doesn't matter to me if I lose you." He said, his voice sounding tight in his chest.

I shook my head, but found I couldn't reply. I realised that I couldn't promise to him that he wouldn't lose me, I wasn't sure whether I would survive being single-handedly responsible for the deaths of so many sentient beings, enemies or not. In Calgary I had been fighting for my life, for _Edward's _life. A planned attack was different, knowing what I was capable of now; cold and clinical, it felt like murder.

"Separate them Bella, for as long as you can." Edward told me what to do, and I thanked God for that.

As I heard Jasper protesting in the background I mentally collected each of the wolves and whipped them into the forest behind us, leaving the Volturi guard they had been fighting in the previous instant standing in front of us with nothing to distract them. I snatched both Emmett and Hudson away in the next instant, bringing them into our small group on the edge of the clearing, swelling our number back to six. In the next instant I heard a rush of wind as Alice came back to join us, completing our small party.

My mind had reached out to the wolves by finding their consciousness's, and my heart lurched when I looked back to the battlefield and realised that there were four wolves that I had not found, because they had been killed in the battle.

As well as Sam and Embry, I saw that Paul had not survived the attack moments before by four of the Volturi, leaving the original pack short of both an Alpha and a Beta. I finally recognised the smaller wolf curled up closest to us who had been killed before we had even arrived as Brady, one of the youngest in the pack.

Four dead. Four of mine, dead. How many more would I lose today?

But there was no time to even consider this as the guard flitted into formation before us, with Jane at the head of them, Demetri on her left hand side.

I counted nineteen remaining guard members, including Jane and Demetri, and as they advanced on us I wrapped my shield securely around each of my family and Hudson, before Jane could make use of her cruel gift. I quaked where I stood, unsure of how to proceed. For a moment I felt as if I was expected to speak to them, and I couldn't think of what to say.

To my immense relief at that moment Edward stepped forward, with Carlisle on his left and Jasper on his right. They stepped inwards until I was shielded behind them, Alice and Emmett immediately shifted to my sides, and I could feel Hudson hovering beside Emmett.

There was silence as everyone sized each other up. I saw a look of confidence cross Jane's face, and she smiled at Edward.

"Edward." Her eyes shifted from him to me and back again. "We've been looking for you."

* * *

**A/N – Apologies for the complete update fail, between a fair bit of writers block on this chapter, and Christmas and New Year, I've left this far, far too long!!**

**We have just two chapters left in this story, both of which will definitely be completed during the month of January. If you need to find something else to read while you're waiting, take a look in my favourites, there is so much fantastic fiction out there at the moment it's scary...**

**Finally, please review! They make me type faster, and will help me finish this story off with a bang!**

**Ria**


	25. A New Order

Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight!

Thank you to my beta venomaddict for all of your help with this story. This is it, the end of the story. Hold on tight.

* * *

"Jane." Edward nodded to her curtly.

"You know why we're here, of course." She smiled in a peculiarly friendly manner, more fitting for a social setting than a battle field, with the corpses of the dead still littered around her. "Very careless of you. Did you know your little dive in Calgary was on CNN?"

"No I didn't. How interesting, I'll have to watch out for fans when I get back home." I was surprised to hear the genuine humour in Edward's voice, especially considering the anger boiling in my stomach towards all of the Volturi before me. But the pleasure Jane seemed to be taking in this meant I reserved a whole new level of hatred for her, the fury I felt towards her making my head physically hurt. I could feel the new power that resided in me pulsating with my desire for vengeance.

"I think you know why we're here Edward." Jane's tone changed suddenly, and her smile narrowed into something remarkably less pleasant. "But we're only here for you and Bella. Everyone else is free to go." Her casual dismissal of the rest of our family with a wave of her hand sounded fake, and it was clear that she knew as well as the last contingent of the Volturi that we had met, that no such thing would happen.

"If that's the case, why did you attack the house, when you must have realised we weren't here?" Edward angrily swung his arm in the direction of Tanya's house, drawing attention to the bloody scene before us again.

"These creatures are our enemies; it's our duty to destroy such beings wherever we find them. It's only your coven that seems to feel that our natural enemies should be embraced." Her eyes shifted until they rested on Hudson. "Whatever they are."

"None of these people are or were our enemies Jane. You've committed crimes of your own here today." Edward's tone was steely, but Jane still showed no sign that she was anything but amused.

She shrugged her shoulders casually. "Not in the eyes of the law. We'll finish what we started as soon as we've dealt with you today." Her eyes shifted back to Hudson. "And you Hunter, very handy your coming to us. Saved us a job at least."

She raised her hand suddenly, in the same way Caius had before he initiated the attack near Calgary, but before she moved Carlisle stepped forward with his arms raised high above his head.

"Stop!" He shouted, his voice echoing around the snow filled clearing. "Please listen to me. We have already fought with Caius on this day."

Jane's hand drifted downwards slowly, a look of puzzlement slowly spreading across her features. "You... fought?" Her unspoken question was clear, how had we fought any contingent of the Volturi and survived?

"We destroyed them all, Caius included." Edward cut in, giving no indication as to how we won our last battle, undoubtedly protecting me. "If you attack us, we will have no hesitation in doing the same to you."

I watched as Jane considered what had been said, her eyes flickering between each of us quickly. Even to me, Carlisle and Edward's words sounded like a bluff, and I could see it in her eyes when she came to the same conclusion.

"If that's true, then all of you now deserve what's to come." Jane raised her arm suddenly and flung it forwards in a signal to attack, and immediately a swathe of the Volturi guard crossed the one hundred feet gap between us to attack.

This time I had no hesitation, my vacillation so far today had already cost too many lives, but now I was ready.

"Get behind me." I hissed, and as one, my family and Hudson flitted backwards, putting me between them and the Volturi guard. The only one who remained at my side was Edward, who stood beside me to face our enemies.

Immediately I threw my shield towards the Volturi, remembering what I had done in the forest earlier, and trying to replicate the sensations in my mind. I had no trouble in generating the emotion I seemed to need to create this level of power. The rage and grief filling me more than enough to drive the entirety of the attack back hundreds of feet, well behind the remainder of the guard.

Again I felt my mind stretch impossibly for an instant, and I had to hold back a scream of terror and pain as I felt my fragile mind distort under the intense stress of forcing so much power outwards so suddenly. My head snapped backwards violently as my shield returned to my body, leaving a vibration in my mind that left me disoriented for several precious seconds.

When I regained my senses Edward was grasping my arm, almost holding me up, and his expression was apprehensive. I looked forwards to see the Volturi regrouping quickly as he whispered in my ear.

"Bella! Are you ok? You looked as if you were going to fall..."

"I can't do that too often yet... I feel as if my mind might snap." As I spoke, Edward's expression changed to horrified.

"Then don't do it again!" he hissed, as another surge of the guard charged towards us, more of them this time, leaving only Jane, Demetri and one other behind.

I clung to him as I pushed the advancing guard away again, but this time they were not thrown back nearly so far, and the effort it took was far greater. My legs almost went out from under me as I felt my mind shiver, this time when my shield snapped back into place it felt wrong, too large for my head somehow.

"Bella, stop!" Jasper stepped up behind me, resting his hand on my shoulder. "I can feel what's going on in your mind, it's not right, you can't keep doing this."

"What choice do I have?" I mumbled as I batted away the next contingent of the guard. They were attacking in wave after wave, seeming to understand that I was the cause of their violent deflections, as every time they were all now converging directly to me.

The guard before us formed a military pattern, lines of soldiers formed one behind the other, each attacking and falling back as I deflected them, leaving room for the next row of soldiers to take their place. The attacks were constant, giving me no time for recovery between them, and I knew I couldn't continue as I was for long

My head was beginning to feel crowded. Every time my shield snapped back into place it felt bigger, as if it was pushing part of me out to make room for it. I began to feel confused, my only remaining desire to protect my family and friends at any cost.

When the next round of guards attacked I reached out and crushed one of their minds, at the same time as batting away the remaining guard, hoping against hope that a demonstration of what I could do to them would cause them to fall back.

Instead they only intensified their attack, the next time they drew forward the entire body of soldiers was in line for the assault.

I could feel a presence behind me, and when I turned for an instant I saw seven wolves standing behind us. They and the remainder of my family, as well as Hudson, readied themselves for the fight. I felt the quiver of anticipation in the beings around me, my family preparing for the final battle, and my last resistance fell. I would destroy everything that threatened them, and reap the consequences when they were safe.

As the final surge careered towards us, all that was mine leapt towards the Volturi as one. The crashes as marble hit marble echoed around me like thunder.

As they fought I began to reach out as quickly as possible, my utter fury increasing my strength and helping me to crush the minds of our enemies as they met the people I loved. I kept a special watch on Edward, knowing that with his injuries from earlier that he was especially vulnerable. I wouldn't allow any vampire near him, ensuring that I destroyed anyone approaching him before they even reached him.

The battle was short-lived. By the time I had crushed six of the guard, the high pitched screeching had attracted the other's attention, and rather than attacking, all of the guard began to fall back quickly.

"What are you doing? Attack!" Jane shrieked at her soldiers, her expression radiating hatred towards us as the guards fell back quickly, fearing for their lives.

Within seconds my family, the wolves and Hudson had returned to my side, watching as the Volturi guard retreated as fast as possible. But I couldn't stop. My mind felt fractured, and all I could see was death and destruction, my goal clear and certain.

Even as the guard retreated I continued to reach out and catch them, crushing them as they ran, my face curled into a snarl close to insanity.

"Bella stop! They're retreating!" I heard Carlisle shout from somewhere beside me, but his voice sounded distant and immaterial to me now.

_Seven_

Seven deaths, but still I couldn't force myself to stop. My shield had become its own master, its driving need to destroy our attackers removing my conscious mind from all control.

"Bella, no more, we've won." I felt rather than heard Jasper, his hand appearing on my arm suddenly. The calm he was broadcasting began to seep into my mind, but too slowly and gently to make any impact on the raging need I felt to annihilate my enemies.

_Eight_

"I... can't...stop." Part of my mind began trying to put the brakes on, but it was with horror that I realised I had lost control. I had no idea how to stop myself in my rampage of destruction. I would continue to break, kill and destroy until the only thing left to shatter was myself.

_Nine_

All of the Volturi were running now, heading away from us as fast as they could, but before they reached the trees on the other side of the Denali house, I reached out and caught them all with my mind, holding them in place to prevent their escape.

Edward was by my side trying to calm me, but it was too much. The growth of my gift had happened too quickly, and I couldn't find enough of myself now to even try and stop what I was doing. The best I could do was to save the ones I loved.

"You have to... run."

_Ten_

"I don't know how to stop. You have to run!" Panic was building up in my chest, only making my grip on my control worse, but I had only one concern. What would I do when I had no more Volturi to throw my rage at?

_Eleven_

"No!" Edward stood at my side, and I could feel him holding me by the arms as he tried to gain my focus. "Jasper, you have to pull her out of this!"

"I'm trying. It's... too much." Jasper's fingers were digging deep into my bicep, but the waves of calm he was sending me weren't even touching the rage that filled my every pore.

_Twelve_

I felt another presence by my side, and I began to feel an alien serenity wash over me. Part of me became aware of the second influence, as well as Jasper's waves of calm I could sense Hudson trying to influence me, to drag me away from the precipice I was so close to toppling over. My fury raged against them, demanding vengeance, demanding its existence be acknowledged, battling with my sanity for control of the unbearable power my mind now bore.

I heard other voices around me, urging me back, calling me to them, telling me to fight.

_Thirteen._

Suddenly my line of sight was broken, Edward stepped in front of me, facing me and looking directly into my eyes, despite the screams from around us at him to stop.

"Bella." His eyes focussed on mine as my shield reached out again, encountering his mind in front of me before any other.

"_No..."_ I wailed, as I felt myself suck his mind into my own, wrapping it in my shield as I had done so many times before, in the way I had done to every member of the Volturi guard as I destroyed them.

I stared at his burgundy eyes, still beautiful despite the human blood from the hospital still in his system, and waited for the moment I would see his soul vanish from them. Because in that second I could see it, his soul was staring back at me, willing me to save or destroy us both.

The moment never came. The familiarity of Edward's mind wrapped tightly in my shield was the balm I needed; the calm serenity that Jasper and Hudson were trying to force into me suddenly flooded my mind, overwhelming me as I dropped forwards like a stone.

Firm arms caught me, lifting me upwards and holding me on my feet as the world span and I struggled back to reality.

I could see Emmett, Jasper, Hudson and Carlisle pursuing the remnants of the Volturi guard, as my vision swirled and settled. I saw Emmett take down three of the guard, tearing them limb from limb, channelling his own rage into death and destruction. Meanwhile the others gathered the three remaining vampires, Jane, Demetri and another vampire who I did not recognise, and dragged them back to where we had made our stand, all of them thrashing and snarling in desperate bids to escape.

By my side Alice held my hand, leaning against me as I clung to her, and still directly in front of me stood Edward, his eyes still fixed on mine as I tried to ground myself in him.

I still held his mind in my own, my only rock in the storm that had threatened to drown me, and as we stared at each other I heard something almost ethereal calling me.

_Bella... Bella... come back to me..._

_Edward?_

_Oh Thank God. _"Bella? Please, for the love of God speak to me!" He grabbed me by the shoulders and dragged me closer to him, crashing our bodies together, our faces so close that our foreheads were almost touching as he leant down towards me.

_I'm here. I can hear you._ "Edward, I'm alright." My voice sounded shaky in my own ears, and it had the most bizarre echolike quality.

_Thank you God, thank you God, thank you God. _"Bella, just lean on Alice, we have to finish this." He pulled away from me, leaving me to cling to my sister as she whispered soothing words in my ear.

The three remaining members of the Volturi were pulled into a short line by Emmett and Hudson, as Edward walked towards where they stood. Carlisle and Jasper stood in front of them, watching silently as the Volturi struggled against their captors, hissing and spitting like demented demons.

Edward stepped in between Jasper and Carlisle at the same time as Emmett and Hudson dragged Jane, Demetri and the unnamed vampire to their knees before them. Emmett and Hudson stood behind our prisoners, holding them down on the ground. Alice and I stayed apart, and watched our mates decide the fate of the creatures before them.

"You Cullens will pay for today! When Aro hears of this, nothing will stop your destruction! We will raise an army to defeat you!" Jane screeched, despite Emmett holding her on her knees by a tight grasp around her throat. Her eyes were wild, her veneer of sanity long gone, the true madness that stalked her clear on her face. With wild hair whipping around her face in the breeze blowing across the snowy battlefield, she was a picture of the lunatic witch that we had already known her to be.

"No Jane." Edward took a half step forwards and addressed her from his full stature. Always the unacknowledged second in our family, he took the lead this time, I suspected as he was in fact speaking for not just himself, but all three of the men who had united in front of the remaining Volturi.

Jane began to screech incoherently, and with an earth-shattering crack, Emmett hit her, rocking her head across her shoulders violently.

"This is the end." Edward's voice rang with authority, and I found myself listening to him in awe. "The Volturi do not belong in the New World. This is now our land, the American continents belong to us. You are hereby banished."

"You can't do that! We uphold the law! You are nothing but criminals!" She shrieked and thrashed as she spoke, refusing to accept that there was nothing she could do against her captor. I felt her gift attack my family incessantly, and I was relieved that even in the state I was in, I was still able to protect them.

"No. We are the law." Edward replied. "This is ours. Consider it a coup. Any Volturi touching the soil of the Americas will be a criminal in our eyes, and we will stop at nothing to destroy them."

Jane stilled under Emmett's grip, though her face still shone with madness. "Aro will not allow that."

"Then I suggest you convince him." Edward took another half step towards her and loomed over her menacingly. "You have seen what we can do, and next time we won't take any prisoners."

"You? No. What your whore can do, you mean, and it looks like it has pretty well killed her too." Jane grinned at me maliciously, and I suddenly felt a barrage of attacks from her aimed directly at me.

Enraged, Edward punched Jane in the face and head, beating her repeatedly as Emmett continued to hold her down.

When he finally stepped back, she began to giggle, finally throwing her head back and laughing like a maniac.

"She's insane." Edward stepped back, but spoke loud enough that any vampire in the vicinity could hear him. "Her mind, it's snapped. She's actually insane, I can hear it."

Jane continued to giggle and shriek, as Emmett dropped her to the ground. She curled up into a little ball, and for a heartbreaking second, when I could no longer see her malevolent eyes, I could make out the child who had been burned at the stake, and then turned into a vampire so many centuries before.

"Leave her. Please." Demetri looked up from Jane's shaking form, at Edward, Carlisle and Jasper, his eyes begging them for mercy. "I will do as you ask."

"You will return to Volterra with our message?" Carlisle said, his expression dark and dangerous.

"I will."

"You understand, that we will not hesitate to destroy you all if you return to our land?" Carlisle continued.

"I do." Demetri was being held down on his knees by Hudson, but in a show of submission her bent his head, and curved his body down lower.

"Then leave." Edward spat the words at Demetri, who continued to submit. "Do not return. If you do, we will consider it an act of war."

Emmett looked at Edward and Carlisle disappointedly as they gestured at him and Hudson to let them stand. "They don't deserve to live Carlisle. This is my vengeance, I have the right to it. Why are we releasing them?"

"Because Emmett, someone has to convey our message to Aro, and I believe these three will do so loud and clear." Carlisle gestured to the three remaining vampires, including the lunatic still rocking on the ground. "Your vengeance will be best served by that."

Emmett released his grip on the third unknown vampire, at the same time as Hudson released Demetri. Quickly they scooped Jane up from the ground, and flitted to the trees. Before I could take another breath, they were gone, leaving us to our wounded and dead.

There was quiet in the field for a second. The only sounds were the gasping and panting breaths of the wounded wolves behind us, as well as the uneven breathing of several of us, as the implications of what had just happened began to whirl around our minds.

Suddenly I heard a familiar voice, and my fractured mind was whole again for it immediately. "MOM! DAD!"

Ness came hurtling out of the Denali house, not quite as fast as a vampire, but far faster than a human. She was across the fields in an instant, with Tanya, Kate and Garrett hard on her heels behind her.

"MOM!" She shrieked in my ear as threw herself at me, Edward was by my side in an instant, wrapped around us both as we sobbed.

"I'm sorry, I couldn't hold her back anymore." Tanya approached us all more slowly, eying me warily as I hugged my daughter, doubtless nervous about what she now knew I was capable of.

"JAKE!" Ness suddenly broke out of our grip, and rushed towards the russet brown wolf, which lay behind us, panting in quick broken breaths as his blood wept across the snow.

"Ness..." I realised I couldn't ask her to stay away from him, as she fell to her knees beside him sobbing hysterically. Her need for Jake was obvious in the few seconds Edward and I watched her try and comfort him, and I knew that sometime in the last few days she had found what she was looking for.

Before I knew it, Edward was beside her, examining Jake. His eyes were full of concern as he looked up towards me, before he searched around with his eyes for Carlisle. "Carlisle, can you come and take a look at him please?"

Edward took Ness's sobbing form in his arms as Carlisle flitted towards them, bending down to speak in Jake's ear as he lay on the ground. "Jacob, you have to phase. I know it will hurt, but it's the only way I can help you."

"No! He won't survive that!" Ness had looked up from Edward's shoulder, her eyes flashing at Carlisle, as she tried to move back to Jake.

"Sweetheart, you have to let him do what needs to be done. Go to your Mother, let us help the wolves." Edward turned towards me. "Bella, you need to take Ness inside, none of this is going to be pretty."

I wasn't sure how I did it, but somehow I made it inside shortly afterwards, with Ness, Alice, Tanya and Kate. Edward and Carlisle had insisted that they be left to deal with the injured wolves, and Emmett, Jasper, Hudson and Garrett had stayed with them. Between them all they tended to the wounded, while we stayed inside baking and preparing sandwiches, for when the time came for what remained of the pack to return to the house.

As we worked, I could smell the familiar smell of incense in the air as the Volturi burned. I tried not to look as Hudson and Emmett built pyres around the clearing to finally destroy our enemies.

At one point I heard an agonised howl change into a human shriek, and I hoped that it was a good sign for whoever it was who made that noise. Ness froze for a few seconds after we heard the cry, and that made me assume it had been Jacob.

Eventually, the pack began to return to the house, one by one. We had watched from the window as they buried their dead, four grave markers now blotting the snowy landscape, and the atmosphere was dark as they returned to us. The first in the door was Seth, limping, but well enough to be carrying Leah, who he carried upstairs immediately to a bedroom. She was still struggling for breath, but after Carlisle had examined her, it seemed she would survive the internal injuries that she was suffering from.

As the other wolves entered, Ness and I looked up every time, searching for Jake. Eventually Carlisle entered, carrying his still form, and he also carried him straight upstairs. Edward walked in behind them, looking exhausted, distracting me from my daughter for a moment, as she chased up the stairs after Carlisle and Jake.

"_Bella_." He whispered as he took me in his arms before he virtually collapsed against me.

"Edward! Crap. Are you ok?" I felt him squeeze me a little tighter for a second before he pulled away and looked at me for a moment in silence.

"It's just..." He took a deep breath and sighed. "I think I'm done."

"Shhh." I led him to the couch, where we both finally collapsed, exhausted beyond reason, beyond how I'd ever known a vampire could even be exhausted. Mind, body and spirit; all completely used up.

We lay still for hours. I neither knew nor cared how long for exactly, only that the sun set and rose again in the time we rested, unspeaking, but still leaning on our other half for support. Wolves and vampires came and went, but everyone seemed to know to leave us be, tucked away in the corner of the large main room of the house, both checked out of life for a while.

Eventually I broke the silence between us, a couple of days after we had originally sat down. It felt completely natural, as if it were the continuation of a conversation we had been having only minutes before.

"What did you mean, when you said 'We are the Law'?" I had hardly registered what he had been saying at the time, it had taken me a couple of days to fully digest everything that had happened over the last week.

"Exactly what it sounded like; we have usurped the Volturi here. Carlisle and I have been thinking for a while that maybe... it's not enough, what we do."

"What do you mean not enough? What's not enough?" I didn't have it in me to be worried by his words, but I did have enough to register the hope in his tone as he spoke.

"The Volturi will never let us be; I saw that in all of their minds today. The only way for us to live our lives in peace is to change the rules, so we are now the Volturi here." Excitement seemed to be building in him as he spoke, but he hadn't answered my question.

"But what's not enough Edward?"

"For us to continue to live an alternative lifestyle without trying to teach others about it, for their sake, not just the people they feed from. We live a life Bella, and maybe if we could show others of our kind that, then they could live one too. Alongside humans, rather than hunting them."

"So, you want us to be the Volturi? We're not soldiers Edward."

"No... Did you know I've been reading a lot of religion and philosophy recently?" I shook my head as he continued, wondering where this was heading. "Many cultures do not believe you are born with a soul, they believe you earn it with the life you live. If that's true... I have some ground to make up."

"Oh... I see."

We were quiet again for a while, and I realised I had no idea how Jake or any of the rest of the pack were doing. Finally I saw Carlisle enter the room, and I called him over.

"Carlisle. How are the wolves?" Edward didn't look too concerned as Carlisle approached us, so I guessed that would mean reasonably good news.

"Recovering. Jacob and Leah were the most severely injured, but they are both much improved from where they were, and both are out of danger." He shuffled his feet for a moment. "I received some things from Aro, not so much a surrender as a terms of agreement to work together for the common good. It's not perfect, but I think it's worth looking at, we don't want to fight anymore."

Edward kissed my temple softly before he got up from the couch to follow Carlisle. I stayed where I was, deciding that I wasn't ready to move yet.

I thought back over the last week as I rested my mind, wondering where it left us. I remembered the people I had just begun to know in Calgary, and the life we were not going to get to live there. I grieved for the woman whose death led us to where we were today, and I grieved for my sister, who I had grown to love as much as any of my family.

And I grieved for a little bit of myself, the part of me that died the day I finally understood what I was; what we all were. I hoped that I wouldn't always be haunted by the death of Anna Stoker, but part of me also didn't want her to be forgotten. I wondered if maybe she was always part of our destiny, my final lesson in life as a vampire.

Finally I considered what had happened with the Volturi. I could hardly bring myself to think about what I was now capable of, and the death and destruction I had rained down that day, but I did. If only to burn it into my memory, a reminder of what I could become if I allowed myself to.

What of our future? If we were to really become the law here, how would we fight the battles that would sometimes be necessary to protect our secret? I could hear Edward and Carlisle elsewhere in the house talking about this, and I knew that at some point we would all need to be party to it. But not today.

A little while later Edward returned to me, and we settled into each other again. I didn't ask him what he and Carlisle had discussed, and he didn't volunteer it to me. There was only one thing I needed to tell him tonight, before we returned to our family, and tried to pick up the pieces of our lives.

"You're wrong you know." I was looking into his beautiful burgundy eyes, as tired as I had ever seen them, but as full of love as they had ever been. "You already have your soul. I saw it that day in the battle."

"You know I don't believe that Bella. I wish I could." He looked at me wistfully, and I shuffled closer to him so that I could look straight into his eyes.

"I could see it, and it was beautiful. You knew that I could have killed you in that moment, but you stepped in front of me to save me from myself. No one can love like that without a soul Edward. If I have to, I'll spend eternity making you believe it's true."

He smiled and pulled me to him, but I could tell that he would not be convinced that easily. "It might take eternity love, but I'm willing to let you try."

And try I would, because now I knew the one thing that I could give Edward in repayment for everything he had given me. The only thing I could give him apart from myself. If it took me eternity, I would show him his soul.

* * *

**A/N – So here we are. This is the end of my story, I hope you have enjoyed it! **

**Can I please take this chance to thank everyone who has read this tale. It was something I wanted to do to address some of the things I didn't like about Breaking Dawn, I hope I've made the saga a little darker for you!**

**Could I ask you one little favour? Even if you've never reviewed this story before, would you mind just clicking the green button for me, just this once? It would be nice to hear from you, reviews make writers extraordinarily happy you know. ;)**

**If you haven't found it yet, please check out my new story "Waking Up", Human Edward is funnier than the vampire, and he's even more gorgeous, in a dishevelled kind of way!**

**Til the next time.**

**Ria**


	26. Epi note

Disclaimer: I don't own Twilight!

Ok, confession time.

There will not be an epilogue for High Noon. I have written one, for the most part, but to be honest it gives more questions than answers, and I think the final chapter finishes the story off better.

I have enough material to write a sequel to this story, but don't have the inclination to write it at this time. I might change my mind at some point in the future, but for now, I'm not even going to think about it. I'm planning on finishing Waking Up, and then I have some ideas for some more original stories, moving further away from canon.

If I do ever plan on writing a sequel to this, I will add the epilogue to High Noon here, which would lead into it. If you're interested leave me on alert, but it won't be anytime soon.

I hope you enjoyed the story, this was the first thing I had written in a long time, and opened a whole new world for me.

Til the next time.

Ria


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